[andyfox]

I was not being kind. You did ouplay him.

Playing the A-3 pre-flop is a terrible play, no matter how spunky you feel. In fact, when feeling spunky, it's probably a bigger mistake. We shouldn't play when we're feeling either spunky or funky, it tends to cloud our judgment.

On the flop, if your opponent has a king, and there's no guarantee he does, you're about a 4:1 dog. But if you have a weak-tight opponent who will meekly call a raise and then check to give you a free card, and meekly call when you improve, this is the ideal opponent. (See Mason's recent article, about which mike l. has commented in a recent post.) After all, he limped in UTG with K-9, and then proved that you could indeed outplay him by doing everything wrong with his top pair.

Who'd you rather have in your game: A guy who limps in UTG and then merely calls your flop raise when he has top pair and then checks the turn and checks the river? Or a guy who overlimps on the button with A-x and then raises the flop sometimes even when he doesn't hit the Ace? Yeah, playing the A-3 pre-flop ain't great. But playing K-9 UTG and then playing like Ron's opponent played post-flop if far worse.