First let me preface this post saying that I hate playing KJ - It make for tough decisions in big pots when you often figure to be dominated.

That said, I was playing a little too tight and (obviously) didn't want to over commit my $20000 stack with raise PF with KhJh in a pot against the big stacks. AT this point the tourney chip leader had about $100k and we were behind the average stack of 33k by quite a bit.

NL Texas Hold'em Trny:17918084 Level:13 Blinds (750/1500) -
Friday, December 02, 18:05:38 EDT 2005
Table $15K Guaranteed R&A(529281) Table #10 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: coachri ( $25468 )
Seat 2: salmannino ( $49216 )
Seat 4: Markschillin ( $55171 )
Seat 6: Pachenga222 ( $16471 )
Seat 7: ARISA ( $42246 )
Seat 8: ATorgersen ( $34331 )
Seat 9: CalGrown ( $19032 )
Seat 10: Eulysses ( $20165 )
Seat 3: hawaiianvb ( $41967 )
Seat 5: nitehawk21 ( $60272 )
Trny:17918084 Level:13
Blinds (750/1500)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Eulysses [ Kh Jh ]
nitehawk21 folds.
Pachenga222 folds.
ARISA calls [1500].
ATorgersen folds.
CalGrown folds.
Eulysses calls [1500].
coachri folds.
salmannino did not respond in time.
salmannino folds.
hawaiianvb calls [750].
Markschillin checks.
** Dealing Flop ** [ 4d, Th, 4c ]
hawaiianvb checks.
Markschillin checks.
ARISA checks.
Eulysses checks.

This was a terrible flop, I thought to myself that the 4's figured to have the blinds very well... The free turn (on the fairly obvious slow play) got me in deep trouble.

** Dealing Turn ** [ Qh ]
hawaiianvb checks.
Markschillin bets [3000].
ARISA folds.
Eulysses calls [3000].
hawaiianvb calls [3000].

The Qh gives me the open end royal draw... I interpret the bet to the slow played 4's or a random weak pair of tens. Is this a poor call ? think I'm leaving equity on the table unless I beleive one of the players already holds the boat. My read on mark was that of a solid player, while hawaiianvb was swinging around making poor calls with very marginal hands.

** Dealing River ** [ Qs ]

The river comes a total blank. But it is potentially a scare card for the underfull, if they will beleive I call the turn when I hit my queen.

The problem with this hand is that it got checked to me (I was last to act and there was $15000 sitting in ($4500 of my chips) it where as I would fold to only having 16K)

I correctly interpreted the checks as genuine weakness/fear of the over boat and not a trap check. My turn call is pretty legitimate with a hand like KQ/AQ even QJ if I beleived the bettor to have a weak ten or pocket pair on the turn.

Bluffing the river on a scare card isn't genrally my style either, but I did put Mark to a very tough decision. (I did beleive in my mind that my bluff could very likely be attempting to put a solid player off of a strong hand that he played poorly.)

So I made the only bet that I beleive couldn't be called. Maybe a min bet would be more effective (and much less risky) bluff on the river board pair.

He used his entire time before finally deciding to call for a third of his stack.

I think this was ultimate my downfall - I gave Mark the chance to go huge ($81000 if he called and won or average $30K if he lost)


hawaiianvb checks.
Markschillin checks.
Eulysses is all-In [15665]
hawaiianvb folds.
Markschillin calls [15665].
Markschillin shows [ 5h, 4h ] a full house, Fours full of queens.


Eulysses shows [ Kh, Jh ] two pairs, queens and fours.
Markschillin wins 46330 chips from the main pot with a full house, Fours full of queens.
Player Eulysses finished in 136 place
Eulysses has left the table.



ANy thoughts? Did I make a good play or does my river bet smell like a bluff? I feel that I did correctly interpret his river check as weakness - maybe that read just made me greedy in a big pot.