Today I have a quiz for you. You must decide whether my opponent is a good player or bad player. To give you some history with this player, he is the one who knocked me out of our local (Cannon Beach) "Tournament of Champions" last year on the first hand. If you recall, I raised preflop with pocket 4's, caught a monster flop of 6/6/4, and was reraised by this particular player with his pocket kings because, in his words, "I don't think you have aces", and refused to lay it down despite my reraise all-in with the statement, "don't call me if you like pizza", referring to the free pizza being served at the first break. He called, and the river brought another 6 to knock me out.
Anyway, last night I was playing tight, had won one small pot with pocket 8's (one opponent folded after flop) when I bet out on a 10/10/6 flop. I then pick up pocket kings in middle position with one limper (the villain previously described). With the blinds at 40/80, I make it $350 to go, and everyone folds except the limper who calls. The flop is excellent for me, queen high, with a 10 and another small card, rainbow. He checks, and I bet $800 into the $800 pot. He raises me to $1600 and I question him. "Queen Ten?, I can't beat 2 pair". I then, reraise him all-in. I am not sure of the total reraise, but we started with 2200 and I probably had about a 600 raise. He kind of does some math and calls. When we turn over our cards, he says, "I put you on a small pair". He then proceeds to deal himself (he was the dealer) a 7 to go with his queen/seven suited that he called my raise with, and reraised me, and called my all-in with. I was stunned but not surprised as he usually does go in with the worst hand and gets lucky.
So, my questions are:
1. How bad is his play?
2. How bad is his read?
3. Did I bet too much on the flop? I was representing perhaps what he thought I had, so maybe with a bad player I should have made a more suspicious bet, like maybe 1/3 of the pot, so if he reraised me, then I could push all-in and get a fold. The reason I bet what I did was that I was still worried about a medium or strong ace catching up, which is what I put him on.
4. I think I played it about right and just got unlucky. I got the desired result, all-in with the best hand so what better scenario than that?
Please post your comments...analysis
1 comment:
Interesting hand. I think his play was terrible from the beginning. Of course, I am once again using what I would do and I am not that player, so there you go. I would fold any weak queen to a raise. He should have also folded. I do not think his read was necessarily awful. He could have put you on pocket eights or nines, in which case he probably thought he had a pretty good hand with top pair. I do think you bet too much after the flop, but I understand why you did it. I think I probably would have bet about half that much, but oh well. When he raised you and you asked him if he had Q-10, why did you go all-in if you even remotely thought he might have had 2 pair and you couldn't beat it? Was it because you didn't think he would call your pre-flop raise with Q-10? This is a tough hand that's for sure and it's a bummer that you lost, but I don't fault him for calling your all-in when he had top pair and he put you on an underpair. Shit happens. I probably would have ended up just like you in the long run. Better luck next time!!
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