poker blog

December 25, 2003

I'm at Superior Poker. Here is the biggest pot in a $1 game I have ever seen. I have AA on the cut-off (the position before the button) and it gets capped pre-flop with me putting in only 1 of the raises. Right away I am nervous because the pot will be big enough for people to draw with anything. Flop comes 8-9-10 of spades. I bet out with the overpair and the nut flush draw and I get raised and reraised. For some reason I am not nervous about the straight flush because the odds of flopping it are so small. I am more afraid of a made straight, baby flush, or 2 pair. The next card is a J of spades. Now there is 8-9-10-J of spades on the board and am now afraid of the straight flush. But strategy-wise there is not much to worry about - what I have to do is check/call the turn and river. I figure if someone has the straight flush then they'll bet and I'll call 2 BB to try to get a $40 pot. As long as I have a 5% chance of winning then this is a +EV move. When I check the turn then "dbone" bets out and "pureimage" raises. The pot is so big and the probablility of a bluff is too high so I cold call the 2 bets and it gets reraised. On the river I get caught up in the raising war again and lose a few bets. "dbone" shows the Queen-high straight flush and "Pureimage" shows the Jack-high straight flush with his 7 of spades. I though that hand was crazy. I have the best hand pre-flop but everyone else is doing the raising. I had the best hand at the flop but they were raising. I hit my nut-flush on the turn but end up having the worst hand. I probably would have folded my hand on the turn if I had to cold call 3 bets but when you throw in a bet and get caught calling a second bet when you already have 1 bet in then it's hard to fold.

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