Black Deuces – Poker Blog

Ever noticed how some players hugely overrate their pocket pairs? A few weeks ago I came across such one player in a local casino. Although he was playing quite a solid game, all of a sudden he decided to blow up with 88′s and as a result donating his whole stack to me.

Here’s what happened:

My pre-flop play might not make much sense: why raise in middle position with K9s? Well, their are several reasons, first of all the table was pretty weak and more importantly I want to keep my opponents guessing. It’s obvious this worked, Mr. Donk here didn’t have a clue what I had, so decided to push all his chips in with a very marginal hand, either on a bluff or just figuring I had AK or a weaker pair. I had been playing very loose ’till that point (basically because the table was playing very tight passive), so he might have actually thought his 88′s were good. Mixing is it up is vital in a poker game!

I decided to call his reraise pre-flop because I had position on him, considered him a weak player that I could outplay post-flop and thought that the player on the button was likely to fold. Well, the button-player didn’t fold, but I was still happy to see a flop with my hand, even with a player (who didn’t show much strength anyway) behind me.

Now, after Donk leads out on the flop I put him on a big pair, at least JJ’s, and I hope he isn’t holding TT’s. Like I said, he was playing a solid game ’till that point, so it was fairly possible he flopped top full. Yet, I’m pretty confident that my is good hand and decide to flat call and see what the player on the button does. He decides to flat call too. Now I know the button player very well, he is either holding a flushdraw or a T, of which both I think a T(J maybe) is most likely, ‘caus I think he would raise a flush draw, just to see where he stands.

On the turn, Donk doesn’t hessitate one second to lead out again, for more then half of his stack. “I smell KK’s or AA’s” I thought at that point. But the question is, should I flat call this and invite the button player in? If he has a flush draw I should move all-in, if he has just a T my flat call would maybe induce him to call too, but I think that’s very unlikely due to the strength Mr. Donk has showed so far. Anyway, I decided to flat call and gamble a bit, if he has a flush draw I want that extra 76$ in the pot, and on the rare chance that Donk is bluffing I don’t want to scare him off his hand. I flat call and the button player folds, excellent result either way.

The river is a blank, Donkey pushes, I insta-call muthering something like “If I’m stupid enough to play K9s, I’m stupid enough to go broke with it too”. The donk asks “You have a ten?” and I show him my trips. He stands up, throws his 88′s open en leaves the pokerroom.

The whole table was shocked at first, then started laughing out loud.