At the Hard Rock which is becoming my usual cash home for now, my 2/5 NL table is skewed toward maniac bluffers. One is a lawyer who relishes bluffing people off their hand with a huge bet then showing 72. Next to him is a kid who looks 12 and told me 4 times that "this is my job" i.e. he was a professional. Yeah, sure...that's a pretty loose category these days. He told the maniac lawyer next to him that he was his new hero and they begin competing to show the biggest bluffs. There were two others who were prone to calling with air, and 2 very tight players. I thought this table might turn out to be my personal stimulus package, so I stayed rather that request a change (probably my first mistake).
I'm UTG with pocket nines in a straddle pot. I min raise to $20. My strategy at this game with the 4 betting donators was to only play in EP if I'm willing to call a raise, but not raise much myself keeping things more manageable. ( If I was in late position, I'd play ATC if there were lots of limpers.) After my early min, the tightest player at the table makes it $50, two guys call, it gets back to me and I call the $30 more. The pot is around $200 now. I obviously put the tight raiser on a big pair. The flop is 7 8 10, pretty good for my nines. I make a small bet $75, and the initial raiser asks how much I have, and he looks really nervous. I have $320. He makes it $100 more and I call. The turn is a 7 whcih to me is a good card. Now there's a potential boat i.e. 78, and a straight, and even trips... not a great flop for aces or kings. I make a pretty fast shove for $220 and the guy instacalls and says, "I'm not laying down kings". The river is a deuce, so my semi-bluff was costly. Against a better player, I think a fold would have been the expected action. I think my major mistake was trying to bluff a player who didn't even see the lurking dangers. Or maybe he made a hero call. Or maybe I played like a fool. What do you think??
cash games
bluffing, bluffing idiots, reading the poker table, Hard Rock