Some Fun Hands in Vegas

So my last post talked about some good laydowns that I made. Let's talk more about some of the hands I won. Here are a few fun ones.

Position, Position, Position - Blinds are 100/200 and I have about 28,000 in chips. Two players limp and I have K9s in the cutoff. I will often raise here to isolate the limpers but my image was somewhat aggressive already so I decided to switch it up a bit. The button folds and the small blind (who I had previously noticed staring someone down hard in a spot that looked like a bluff), stares at me and makes it 1,000. The limpers fold and while I at first thought about folding because "he probably has a better hand", I took a few seconds to think about the situation. I have position with a hand that can flop reasonably well and I can easily get away from top pair with a ton of action if needed. So I decide that instead of playing scared money, that I would see a flop and play some poker. The flop is Kxx and he insta-leads 2k into 2,500. I look at him and his eyes are HUGE, like an owl at night. His bet sizing and his staring is telling me to go away. So I'm pretty confident my king is good here. If he had AA or a better king, he wouldn't be betting so much. So I decide to call. Raising will get all worse hands to fold and better hands to call, so I elect to flat and hope to get value on later streets if he has a pocket pair under the King. The turn brings a second spade (which is beautiful) and he checks as expected. No reason to bet here because it's pretty obvious he doesn't have a King. I check and the turn is a blank. He checks and I bet 3k into the 6,500 pot hoping to get a hero call from QQ but he folds. He probably had something like AQ. But the moral of the story is that having position can outweigh the concept of him "having better hands in his range". It's more about the situation, having position and then considering that my cards have decent equity vs. his range (despite being behind).

Weak Bets from Weak Opponents Usually Mean Weakness - At 150/300 + 25 there are two limpers and I open AJos on the button and get flatted by an older Asian guy in the small blind who liked to see flops. This drug along the limpers and the flop came KdQd4s. There is 5050 in the pot, the Asian guy checks dark and it checks around to me. I could c-bet here, but the flop is somewhat coordinated and often times leading into 3 players here will lose money in the long run so I decide to peel off a free card to try and bink a ten. The turn is a Q and the Asian guy leads for 600. So this seems kinda weird. Yes he checked dark, but if he had a K or Q he wouldn't bet so small into 3 others. I decided that calling was best here because if he had a hand like KQ or 44 for a full house, he would bet the river and I would know where I stood if I hit a Ten or an Ace. The river brought a third diamond on board and he checks. Now I'm confident that he was weak and was just taking a small stab at the pot. This diamond was a great card because now I can represent a wide range of scary cards and get him to fold. There are times that Ace high might be good here, but I think betting is better in case he does have a King or maybe a pocket pair. There was 6,250 in the pot and I bet 3,500 to make it enough to get a fold but also look like it was for value. He folded and I took down a nice sized pot.

The Importance of Breathing - This isn't really a hand per se and could probably be it's own blog post. But for now I'm just going to comment on what I'm seeing is something that is really important (at least to me). Breathing brings oxygen to the brain, slows your heart rate and also relaxes your muscles and blood vessels. All of these physiological effects allow you think clearly and logically, limiting emotion or fear from influencing your decisions. I'm getting myself into the habit of exhaling slowly and then thinking about the situation before I look at my cards. I will also take this same ritual before deciding what line I'm going to take and how much I'm going to bet. I've mostly done this before, but there are times where I've played and subconsciously had my mouth closed and thus holding my breath during a hand. This can sometimes be a whole session of being tense and getting into auto-pilot, leading to impatience (which feeds the cycle of being tense). You will often times see the high stakes players with their mouth's open during a hand. They are in the zone and probably aren't really thinking about how they look. But they are relaxed and focused. Oxygen is flowing and because they aren't tense, blood can flow freely to bring that oxygen to their brains. This is something that has to be natural of course. You can't really "fake" being relaxed. But if you are conscious about breathing, the rest of your body tends to follow suit.