Slow Play Friends- Part II

Recently a friend opined that he was no longer doing friendly check downs with friends, or at least friendly players. The rational is that good players don't play that many hands, and when they do they need to get maximum value from them due to the many horrific bad beat suck outs. I generally agree with this. I wrote a while back about a friendly check down that turned bad and its aftermath. I recently was "guilty" of not soft playing a very good friend, also my roommate in the Tri-Cities and a fellow employee.

Here was the situation. We were playing in the morning Moose tournament and were down to 3 handed at the final table. An out of town visitor, who was a major luckbox and kind of obnoxious had more chips than both of us combined. My friend and I were heads up in a blind vs. blind situation. Honestly, I cannot remember if I completed the small blind, or if we were both in a big blind due to the loss of a player. The blinds were significant, maybe 2000/4000 and represented a big chunk of our chips. Anyway, the flop came down with Q/9/X with me having a queen with no kicker (3). As first action I went all in. My friend looked very annoyed at me and called for all but a couple of his chips. He had a 9. My hand held up and I was in fairly good shape to take on the chip leader. However, I was upset at myself for betting into him, and for his dumb call. The very next hand I ended up raising with A/4 offsuit and was reraised by AA, which I idiotically called, feeling I was pot committed. My friend ended up in 2nd place which was worth an additional $90, so it had a happy ending for him.

My rationale.....remembering that man is a rationalizing, not rational creature.......was that I wanted one of us to have a shot at taking him down. Neither of us had enough chips individually. If I checked down top pair and he drew out the chips won would make the difference in my chances, but we were both at a huge disadvantage. The upshot was that my friend was ticked off at me for a while, I was upset that I had been disloyal to him. Also, I feel that for a while I had very bad poker Karma, which is about the worst punishment one can earn.

Just an update on a super bad beat....Went all in with a raise before me with AA, called by QJ suited and original raiser with AA. Naturally a straight hit for him and knocked both aces out.

A corollary to AA from a tournament yesterday. I saw a guy misplay them as bad as I have ever seen. He was in the bb and there were at least 6 limpers, including me with 10/J suited. He raised.....$20 from the $20 limp!!! Naturally everyone called. He flopped a set, but the flop was all diamonds. He bet like $30 and the flush draws called. He ends up going all in on the river, calling the all in nut flush, and also the player with 3rd nut when a diamond hits. super dumb.