Pocket pairs

[Billy LTL]

There's this fellow Lee I play against a lot in a 50-100 hold 'em game.

Lee's a good player who is a tad too aggressive. I'm aggressive also but Lee really overdoes it sometimes. It's the only slight edge I feel I have against him. He undoubtably feels his aggression is the edge HE has over ME. So it goes.

His starting hand selection tends to be looser rather than tighter which makes him a devilishly tricky opponent and he's not at all afraid, depending on his opponents, to represent the nuts on every street. I generally do my best to stay out of his way but on this particular night we'd been butting heads all evening, competing for the attention of the livest of live ones.

Now in the big blind in this particular hand was the reason both Lee and I were still in the game, and had been in the game for over 16 hours. This guy, when in the blind, would not only would call any raise preflop but, if the flop hit him at all he would stay until the end. This is important to understand. He was on his second $5000 buy-in, with the majority of that gone as well.

So Lee open-raises from UTG+1. I look at 1010 and reraise. All fold to BB who calls, Lee caps it and both BB and I call.

The flop - 8 [img]/forums/images/icons/spade.gif[/img] 6 [img]/forums/images/icons/spade.gif[/img] 5 [img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img]

BB checks, Lee bets, I raise, BB calls, Lee reraises, I cap and all call.

The turn: 8 [img]/forums/images/icons/spade.gif[/img] 6 [img]/forums/images/icons/spade.gif[/img] 5 [img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img] 2 [img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img]

BB checks, Lee bets...here's where it gets tricky. I don't have a read on Lee's hand. It could be AK or AQ maybe suited, maybe not. It could be any pair higher than mine. It might even be a pair lower than mine. I just don't know.

The live one...it's kind of irrelevant because he'll call to the end with any pair and see the river card with any kind of draw. In the past eight hours I had yet to see him open-bet or raise, and a couple of times he was holding overwhelming favourites. In other words he was the type of player it just wasn't worth the time to figure out how his mind works.

I called (and later was glad I did), BB called. The river was A [img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img]

8 [img]/forums/images/icons/spade.gif[/img] 6 [img]/forums/images/icons/spade.gif[/img] 5 [img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img] 2 [img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img] A [img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img]

Does the river card suck or what? BB checks, Lee bets. What to do? There is a ton of money in the pot and I'm pretty sure I'm beaten now.

I raised. Comments?

The BB called. Lee snarled some decidely unkind phrase in his mother tongue and, very reluctantly folded.

BB turned over pocket sevens and I took down the pot. Lee later told me he'd put me on AK. In his words "I thought no way, I can't beat both of you, even though one of you is very, very bad player."

I wonder if he meant me or the BB? Never mind, the BB quit after that hand and I took Lee out for some chili crabs and beer, both of which happen to taste great at 4:00 am. Life in the tropics.

Oh yeah. Who do you think played the river worse, me or Lee? At the time I felt I was making a monstrous mistake by trying a bluff on the river like that (until it worked of course [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] ). But I think Lee's bet-out on the river was a worse mistake that I can only put down to fatigue on his part. In retrospect I'm sure he had KK or QQ. I think his fold was terrible too.

Best of luck, Billy (LTL)