[curtains]

Ok, so one reason I raised preflop is because of the relative chip positions and the somewhat tightness of my opponent. My opponent however has been playing with me a bit lately and so I probably won't be making such liberal plays with them in the future.

On the flop, of course betting is normal. In some sense this is a dream flop for my hand, as now I have top pair. I decided not to bet, because if I bet, I believe that Im committed to putting all my chips in the pot if I'm raised, and for some reason I didn't feel so comfortable doing that. When I check and he bets 60, probably the best play would be to immediately raise to about 200-260. If he calls/raises me, then I get off the hand. One downside to such a method play is that it completely devalues the strength of my hand. I may as well be making the play with any 2 cards, and I hate to take a hand like top pair, and make it so that the pair actually has no relevance in the situation.

Anyway let me summarize some ideas, valid or not:

1. If I plan to bet the flop and fold to a raise, its irrelevant that Ive hit top pair, and its a shame to waste my hand's value.

2. If I plan to check raise the flop and fold to a 3-bet, again I've rendered my hand worthless. In this scenario and the above, I may as well have 62o.

3. It's possible to bet out and move allin if raised, although this is quite risky and given that my opponent doesn't have a penchant for randomly bluffing against aggressive action early in a sit and go, it could be quite a risky play as well, and one I wasnt comfortable with making.

4. In the end I decided to preserve the value of my hand at all costs by checking. If my opponent bet the pot, I would now probably check raise allin, as I have shown such little strength that their bet could easily be a simple continuation bet, and if Im called I probably have a few outs anyway. When they made the smallish bet, I decided to play passively and keep the pot small. I didn't believe my opponent would just fire away on all 3 streets without a hand. Sometimes I go into weird passive mode, which isn't so bad for my image, because a lot of these times I plan to call/raise my opponents bets, thus people cannot just expect to always steal every time I check.

Anyway obviously this hand wasn't perfect or anything. I just decided to mix it up against this guy. For those who want to know, the opponent had JJ and hit a set of jacks on the river. So I did manage to find at least one way to not double him up. I mean he slowplayed his big pair, I hit top pair, and he only got 260 chips out of me, not a terrible result for me.


5. Please note that the river call I felt there was some chance I was ahead and also I just really wanted to see what my opponent had. What kind of hands would they play in such a weird manner? The information gained MAY be worth the 200 chips in this case. Everytime you get to see your opponent's hand in such a situation it helps you formulate an overall idea of how they play, and given that I played about 10 sit and gos with them last night, and expect to play with them very often, this can be valuable. However I would never make such a call unless I felt there was some chance my hand was good, which I believe there is, given the weakness that I exhibited throughout the hand.