Poker plays with PokerPeaker - When showing strength means weakness
I am playing .25/.50 NLHE on Full Tilt in a full-ring cash game.
I'm dealt K-K.
There's an early position raiser to $3. That raise will probably accomplish my goal of driving everyone else out so I'll be heads-up with my big pair.
So I do not re-raise. A re-raise is probably the best move here, but I want to disguise the strength of my hand.
Sure enough, everyone else folds, so I'm heads up with the other player. Good.
The flop comes J♦ - 8♣ - 9♥.
That's a dangerous flop for an over pair. But I'm not going to check here and give him a free card.
So I bet half the pot, $4.
He raises me to $10.
Now I know what you're thinking here. Danger, Will Robinson, Danger! Fold! Fold! Fold!
Instead, I jam with my K-K.
Let's look at his action. He raised in early position to $3, about 6xs the big blind. That's a pretty strong move. So does he have a straight? I doubt it. I don't think he'd raise that much before the flop with Q-10. Do you? Would you?
So does he have a draw, say, something like 10-10? That's possible, but with my jam, I've just made it a mistake for him to call. And would he raise with a draw? It's possible but not likely.
No, what he's trying to do here, with his raise, is bump me off the hand. Lately I've taken the philosophy that raises at the level I usually play do not mean the nuts when they come on the flop.
Instead, they mean the guy's got a hand, but it's not a hand he wants to keep playing.
A raise, in this spot, I believe, means I'm ahead and he's fairly weak.
Sure enough, he folds his hand, and I take a nice pot.
Sometimes, when I present these hands, my plays won't necessarily be the best plays. I'm not a professional. I'm just someone who has studied poker, loves the game and is a winning player.
In this case, you could pick on several of my moves. You could say I only called with my Kings, so I didn't really know where I was in the hand. You could say that my overbet on the flop will only get called by stronger hands. You could also say that he could certainly be raising with a set there, so a raise doesn't always mean he was weaker than a pair. Finally, you could say that all I had was a pair, and a pair is no hand to be pushing with on that board.
Those are all valid points.
That's why poker is such a great game. There are several moves to make on every street, and not every move is the perfect one. So what's yours in that situation?
You can meet me in the forum for a discussion if you’d like.
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