11:19pm: Ok, so what the hell was I thinking on that hand? Some of you probably look at it and thought, ‘how in the hell could he fold when he’s got that much money in the pot?’. Valid question, but easy to answer. It’s because he had nada, and I’d venture to say that 75% of the times he bet he had nada as well. I let him have the pot the previous 5-6 times he did it, because the blinds are relatively small. However, before I explain the hand, I need to post the results of 5 hands that led up to the hand in question.

5. In this hand, he raised the button as per usual, and King high is good enough for a call here in most cases. K10+ I probably would re raise this guy in particular. However, there are some matches where I would just check behind and not raise at all. As you’ve heard a lot, it depends on the player. He’s well aware at this point that I like to play small pots early on. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s seen my tutorials. I believe he put me on something like K10, JQ on this hand. No matter what he had I think he committed himself to firing if an ace hit on the flop. However, if he had an ace, he probably would have checked the flop. For the most part, he only bet the flop when he had air, and only checked when he had hit something. I don’t think he knew that I knew this, but for the most part I have his betting patterns down pat at this point. Anyways, I decide to let go, as I’m either going to raise or fold this kind of hand with that flop. I err on the side of caution and let it go because it would be extremely weak to float him with that hand, unless I was going to make a BIG move later in the hand. I decided to pick a better spot than this and move on to the next hand.

J$lacker: posts small blind 15
trujm: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [6d Kd]
J$lacker: raises 60 to 90
trujm: calls 60
*** FLOP *** [As 3d 4s]
trujm: checks
J$lacker: bets 120
trujm: folds
J$lacker collected 180 from pot
J$lacker: doesn’t show hand

4. On this hand I decided that I was ahead pre flop, and committed to that belief. If he hit the flop, I decided I was going to pay him off. However, not without being put to a huge decision first. I knew if i checked to him he would bet big, because I was aware of the fact that he knew I was trying to play small pots in the early rounds. It is that knowledge of what he was thinking that led to this move, and it worked. It’s almost like a reverse “stop and go”, because I decided to check instead of shoving the flop because I knew he would bet regardless. He bets, and I stuck to my original plan and pushed. If he didn’t call within the first 3 seconds, I knew he was going to fold, and that was indeed what happened.

J$lacker: posts small blind 15
trujm: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [7c 7s]
J$lacker: raises 60 to 90
trujm: raises 150 to 240
J$lacker: calls 150
*** FLOP *** [5d 9d 8s]
trujm: checks
J$lacker: bets 300
trujm: raises 1265 to 1565 and is all-in
J$lacker: folds
trujm collected 1080 from pot
trujm: shows [7c 7s] (a pair of Sevens)

3. This hand is another example of how he would lead out no matter what. There’s a good chance I have him beat here, however I didn’t want him to be able to control the pace of how I was going to play the match. I wanted to play at “my game”, not his - so I let it go. That’s a big no-no in heads up matches - do not let people get you off your “your game”. Anyways, this particular hand accomplishes a few things: 1. It might lure him into a false sense of security, where he may start to think “hey I can run over this guy”, or “he only puts it in with big hands”. 2. It screams to him, “this guy’s pots are for sale!”, which I’m sure he took note of. There’s nothing more satisfying than convincing my opponents that my pots are for sale, as that creates action I wouldn’t normally get by defending the blinds more, or getting involved in big pots early.

That being said, I raise pre flop with QKoff, which is a decent hand to pick up heads up. He calls, and then out of nowhere leads out into my raise when the flop comes out. He knows I’ve been folding a lot, and I know that he knows this. It’s just a matter of time before I decided to do something about it. Sooner or later I’m going to have to let him know that he’s about to wake up the sleeping giant.

trujm: posts small blind 15
J$lacker: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [Qd Ks]
trujm: raises 60 to 90
J$lacker: calls 60
*** FLOP *** [5c 9s 6s]
J$lacker: bets 150
trujm: folds

2. At this point, he feels like he’s running over me. I’ve played the last couple of hands in a weak manner, and at this point he has to be thinking that I’m a total push over. Hell, he might even be thinking he doesn’t need cards to play me. Anyways, this next hand is just more folding, more weakness, more bait into the false sense of security. But more importantly, more re-assurance that I am “waiting for a good hand” to put the money in.

J$lacker: posts small blind 15
trujm: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [Qs 3s]
J$lacker: raises 60 to 90
trujm: folds

1. This is the hand right before the metagame bluff. Nothing spectacular, just me min raising just in case I hit the flop. He will never put me on an 8 if the board needs an 8 to complete anything significant, so this was more of a pot building raise just in case than it was a raise for value. And as you might have predicted, he led out into yet another one of my raised pots. This makes now 5 hands out of the last 7 that he has led out into one of my raises by betting the flop. At this point, he may be thinking one of the following:

a. I’m due to get looked up soon, I better be careful
b. I’m running over this guy, he’s just waiting for the nuts
c. Geez, that guy must be getting sick of folding

Dealt to trujm [8h Jh]
trujm: raises 30 to 60
J$lacker: calls 30
*** FLOP *** [Ac Qc 3d]
J$lacker: bets 90
trujm: folds

The Hand: Ok, so how did I pull this off? Well, let’s piece together the information that we know

a. He thinks I’m a weak-tight nit
b. He believes aggression is the key to winning poker and practices that belief
c. He fires at every raised flop, no exceptions
d. He knows that I’m trying to stay away from big pots

That information is totally useless unless you do something about it, and use it to your advantage. This is the hand I decided to take a stand and let him know that he’s going to have to be careful from this point on when he throws chips in the pot, because I’m definitely not as afraid to make a move as he believes that I am. I decided that on this hand, if I made a move, he was more than likely to respect it because of the quality of hands I’ve shown down up to this point, and also because I’m letting a lot of hands go on the flop.

On to the hand; He makes it 90, I decided to just call. However, what I do at this point is something I do a lot, and it’s very deceptive. In my head, I no longer have 9h5h. I have now literally convinced myself that I have pocket aces. This means that I’m going to have to play the hand the same way as I would if I had aces against an aggressive player. It all starts with the smooth call pre flop. He knows that I know he’s aggressive, so if he were me, I believe he would have smooth called with AA against an aggressive player such as himself.

If I have aces (and I might as well because I’m totally convinced that I do), then I have to once again play them as if I do. I thought long and hard about what I would do in the case, against him with AA. I then decided to check-min-raise the flop, because I knew he would bet. Everything about this hand had to scream that I wanted a call. When he played it back in his head, the whole hand start to finish had to make sense to him in order for him to be convinced he was beat. If even for a second I deviate from convincing myself that I’m holding anything else other than aces, I decrease the likelihood of me selling this hand and making him fold.

After I check-min-raise him, he min raises me back, and I went into the tank. What would I do in this situation if I had aces? Normally, I’d shove at this point, but that would look like I want him to fold — and if I had aces, I wouldn’t want him to. So If I main raise back, it tells him #1 in stronger than you, and #2 I’m going to the felt with this hand, no matter what you bet. As planned, he took the last raise as extreme strength, and he decided to let it go (although I don’t believe he had anything at all). I knew he was thinking that I was tight. I also believe that he knew that I knew that he was thinking I was tight. That being said, he believed that me, knowing that, would think that he would only do that with a hand because he knows that I know that he thinks I’m tight. However, I was just one single step ahead of him on this hand, and he folds just as I thought he would.

trujm: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [5h 9h]
J$lacker: raises 60 to 90
trujm: calls 60
*** FLOP *** [Qc 4s Jc]
trujm: checks
J$lacker: bets 90
trujm: raises 90 to 180
J$lacker: raises 90 to 270
trujm: raises 90 to 360
J$lacker: folds
trujm collected 720 from pot
trujm: shows [5h 9h] (high card Queen)
J$lacker said, ” i never ***in hit anything”

Notice he says “I never ***in hit anything” after the hand, which confirms my belief that he was just playing metagame, and was indeed min raising with air. However, in the end, on this hand, I was on a higher level than him.

The moral of the story is that he never recovered from this kick in the chest, and I believe it was very humbling for him. I say that because his game was totally off the rest of the match. I won’t use the word ’tilt’, but let’s just say he was playing “average with shades of tilt”. Here is how it ended:

Seat 1: J$lacker (630 in chips)
Seat 2: trujm (2370 in chips)
J$lacker: posts small blind 50
trujm: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [Ts Th]
J$lacker: raises 530 to 630 and is all-in
trujm: calls 530
*** FLOP *** [Qd 6d Qh]
*** TURN *** [Qd 6d Qh] [5h]
*** RIVER *** [Qd 6d Qh 5h] [5c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
trujm: shows [Ts Th] (two pair, Queens and Tens)
J$lacker: shows [8c Ah] (two pair, Queens and Fives)

He was extremely impatient after I showed the bluff, and it caught up with him on this hand as it was all over after this.

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