Friday Night Big Hands against Mr. Tricky

I headed in to the Oaks on Friday and played from about 9 until 3:30 am. The late night Friday crowd is even looser than the folks I see in the 5-9 range every week and I got involved 5-6 pots in the $1,000+ range.

On the biggest one of the night there was a raise to $20 and one call. The caller is a tricky regular player who I've played against many times. Mr. Tricky is loose and aggressive and usually either wins big or implodes catastrophically. I raised to $60 out of the big blind with black AA and both the raiser and Mr. Tricky called. The flop came down K 6 5 with two hearts and I bet out $130. The raiser folded and Mr. Tricky made it $330 to go. He had another $450 behind and I had him covered.

I know what I did, but I'm going to try to sort out what I should have done. At the time I was thinking almost all of his range was K's and draws. I think he could have KQ, KJ, KT, 87 suited, 65 suited, and then Ax or any two connected or one gap (e.g. J9) suited in hearts. That breaks down to 36 combos of one pair of Ks, 3 combos of straight draw, 22 combos of flush draw, 2 combos of two pair and 6 combos of sets. I think with this guy I'd have to throw in 10 combos of total bluffs as well. If that's all correct then I'd expect:

46% of the time I'm against one pair of Ks
28% of the time it's a flush draw
13% of the time it's a bluff
8% of the time it's a set
4% of the time it's a straight draw
3% of the time it's two pair

Looking at it this way I should be ahead close to 90% of the time, and in the middle of working out all this mess I realized that shoving is almost certainly best against both the drawing hands and the K's. I was thinking my opponent might fold his one pair K hands against a shove, but I think most of the time he checks back the turn and folds to a river bet with a bare K so I'd just end up giving him two shots to catch up with no added value.

In the actual hand I did shove after a 30 second pause and got called by 65. Mr. Tricky took about 60 second to call me and the longer it look the more sure I was that I was ahead. The turn and river were both blanks and when I showed my hand that fucker slow rolled me! He hung his head and sighed and then after a few seconds turned over his hand. He said he was relived that I didn't have KK, but whatever the reason it was a dick move.

Later on I had a chance for my revenge. This time I had AK of diamonds on the button and I've forgotten the preflop action. I know the flop came down A T 8 with two diamonds which barring a Q J T board is about as good as it gets for AK suited. I bet and happily Mr. Tricky check called. The turn was 7 of hearts, he checked, I bet about $130 and he raised me to $300. Uh oh. My gut feeling was I was against aces up. There was around $600 in the pot and I only needed to call $170 more to draw to my flush so there was no way I was folding. Plus this guy in tricky and it was a super draw heavy board. The river was a blank and he bet another $300. If I was playing my best I would have folded here, but I was still pissed about the other hand and it was about 2 in the morning so I called. I lost to J9. Son of a bitch!

Luckily I got the best of some other people in the game.

On one hand I raised KQ to $30 before the flop and got 3-4 callers. The flop came down Q T 4, I bet and got one caller. The turn was a K making me top two. I bet, and my opponent shoved with what turned out to be K9. My gut feeling was that he was really strong, but then I realized there was no  way I was folding top 2 so I called. The river was a 9 which looked awful, but was actually inconsequential. I picked up about $600 on that one.

On another I raised to $105 on the flop on an A high board and got called. On the turn I spiked a 5 and bet $210 followed by $315 on the river. I got called down by a man who was very pissed to see my hand.

In the last round I got AA again and stacked someone for about $600. In the end I booked a $150 win which broke my losing streak, but I'm still thinking about those two big hands against Mr. Tricky.