Mike Cuneo
05-13-2005, 04:14 PM
Just another hand from my regular NL game, $5-5 blinds buy in 1-300. I am sitting on about $450 at this point and there is a player two seats to my right exposing his cards as he mucks hands like Q6o, 23o, 72o all night. He is complaining about how bad his luck is and how he "hasn't won a pot all night." He is really ready to bet with any sort of hand. Anyway, the player to my left is utg for this hand, and throws in a dead straddle of $20. I look down in first position and see 68s. I fling in a call, hoping for a volume pot and trying to flop 2 pair, a straight draw, a flush draw, or trips. Someone in LP makes it 60 to go, and when it gets back around to me it's $40 to call, with about $250 in the pot (5 players, including me). I decide to call also, but I have the idea in the back of my head to be very very careful unless I flop a monster. Anyway, we take a flop of J 4 6 rainbow. It checks around. The turn card is a 7, giving me a gutshot to go with my middle pair. Suddenly, the player who hasn't won a pot all night goes all in for $125. I sit for a little bit and think. Why would he bet his whole stack here with a real hand? My guess is he was on a draw and wanted to take it down. I had a strong read on him, and with $260 now in the pot and me still left with about $220 after the call if I lose, i decided to call. Everyone else folded and he asked what I had. I told him I had one pair, sixes. He said I was good and showed KT of hearts (no hand, no draw). The river was a blank and I took down a hefty pot. Players at the table said I had a lot of balls to make that call and what if he has a set, straight, 2 pair, etc? I know the PF call is pretty terrible, but I also feel I can get good reads on most players and play well enough postflop to make up for the looseness. After all, my goal is to see flops and try to break people with small cards such as 55, 78s, 45s, and 22. I feel like I can get paid off well and with a great read or two thrown in I can maybe bluff and pick up pots also. Also, if I don't hit the flop pretty hard I am folding 95% of the time, but this time I just had a read and a gut feeling that he was puting a play on. Also, I feel like I can project a very loose table image and get paid off well when I pick up hands like AA or KK. I want people to think I am a fish because if they believe that then I have really gotten into their heads. And by the way that calldown put the guy on tilt the rest of the night, but I avoided any further big pots with him and cashed out a healthy gain of $660. Any advice to help me? (even though I'm up big in the past 2 weeks I still can get a lot better and I realize I am running very well. For example I flopped quads twice in about 30 minutes with 44 and 55. But I got paid off so maybe my loose play has something to do with it)