A Clever Spell

Any good fisherman knows that the key to making that good catch is to be as fisherman like as possible. Quiet, patient, and ready to make that tug when the timing is just right.

Just like fishing, poker is full of these metaphorical fish. I was in Cherokee recently and the table I was given was full of tourist. There was one guy there with 4.5 stacks and he seemed like a regular, but the rest of them were pure fish. The game was 1/2 NL Hold ‘Em and I sat down and just observed for the first few hands.

There was this one guy, let’s call him Bob for convenience sake, who was playing like a maniac. And the rest of the online poker table, except for our regular was playing insanely loose and passive. Bob was the only one showing any aggression in the first 10 hands we played. Now I’d normally want a high pocket pair in this situation, but after thinking about it for a while, I decided that a suited connector or suited paint would be a much better holding considering the ratio of the limpers seeing flops.

Low and behold just after the first online poker 10 hands when I’d made my reads, I caught AQh and I was in position. Bob was two seats away. This is what I wanted to see. Bob made it 30 to go. I simply called here in position to see a cheap flop after Bob grossly overbet. There were two other callers. The pot was now about 130, and the flop came 2 Q K, two hearts. Two checks and then Bob makes it 100 to go, just under pot. I realized that this was one of his standard bets when he had a high part of the flop, but how high. Did he have the K? Maybe. And his bet threw me off the heart draw if he did. But seeing as how loose he was I decided to go ahead and call. The next card came 2, no heart. Giving me two pair with one to the nut flush draw. The other two folded and it was just me and Bob left in the hand. The pot was now at 300. Bob immediately pushed all in. I didn’t like that in a way, an in another way I did. I saw him pull this move before and it meant he was bluffing all the way. Either he had bottom two pair and was trying to bet me off my hand or he had nothing and was hoping his Ace high would hold up. I put him on a straight draw calling his hand as A10, and that he was shoving hoping I wouldn’t be able to call and he wouldn’t have to draw to his gutshot.