I had made a couple of laydowns prior to this hand. One when I had pocket Js on a 9 high flop. I led out for 2/3 pot on the flop, but slowed down when a K hit the board on the turn. I checked again when the board paired 9s on the river. When my opponent shoved behind me, I didn't feel like I could call off all my chips on that board. The next hand I played was with pocket 10s. Again the flop was non threatening. I had position this time and my opponent checked to me, but called when I bet 2/3 pot. Once again a K came on the turn and we both checked. Another K came on the river and my opponent shoved. I really don't think he had it, and suspected he was making a move, having seen me fold to an all-in bet in the earlier hand. If he was, it worked. I folded.
Which brings me to this hand. As I said before, this guy was very active, making a lot of min raises from different positions. Nobody seemed to want to get involved with the bubble approaching. I reraised him thinking he might fold to a 3-bet. When he checked the flop, I made the c-bet hoping to take the pot down right there. I knew he wasn't calling my 3-bet pre-flop with rags. So when he called me on the flop, I started thinking what kind of
hands would he not want to bet with, but not want to fold either. I figured him for something like 10-J or 10-9, where he might be worried about being outkicked or a flush draw. I was leaning towards the flush draw. I also considered that he might be waiting for an overcard that he could
bluff at to try to get me to fold based on prior hands where I had folded to all-in bets on the river. When he checked on the turn, that pretty much reinforced my belief that he was on a draw. I decided to fire another 2/3 pot bet thinking if he was on a draw, that might get him off it, and not wanting to turn over control of the hand to him. It occurred to me after I had bet that I should have just shoved, because there was no way I was getting away from the hand at that point. I honestly had him on a straight draw right up until the moment he shoved and was actually surprised to see him turn over the Qs. I guess, in that sense anyway, he played the hand pretty well. But I was obviously committed by then and looking at up to 15 possible outs (14 when he turns his hand over).
As for the chat, it didn't really bother me. I thanked him several times throughout. It did get a little old after a while, but that was just because he couldn't come up with any original insults and was just repeating the same thing again and again. "Blah blah blah bet with nothing on the flop. Whoopty whoop whoop such and such on the turn so on and so forth. Lucky ***** this and that". And so on. Then repeat. I thanked him sincerely, whether he knew it or not, when he said that if he ever saw me at a table he would make sure he told everyone how terrible I played. I love to be underestimated. I'm always pumping that I play bad and get lucky shit. But nobody believes you when you say it. Somewhere in there I did tell him that he shouldn't have sat by and waited until I was I was pot committed to demonstrate the strength of his hand with a bet. But what finally seemed to shut him up was when I finally gave him a poker player test. "You chose to play your hand the way you played it, and it backfired on you. So what did you learn from it?" I threw several choice expletives in there, of course. But he had no answer for that and finally went away.
I guess another good question would be whether or not it was worth all the fuss. I can somewhat understand him being upset at losing so much of his stack. But I have played hands passively in the past, and had it come back to bite me in the ass. And I'm not even going to tell a lie and say I wasn't pissed. But I was pissed at me, not the
poker site, not my opponent.
