I got a decent response from my last rather long post regarding the two maniacs and their destruction of my premium pairs so I thought I’d post another hand analysis. I’ve changed the tone slightly this time around (I win!) but the point here isn’t winning or losing it’s whether my play is completely suicidal in the long term or whether I actually played it well.

Opinion about the hand is divided here at home. My girlfriend, who has only recently started playing poker thinks I’m a lunatic for playing this hand in this way and I can’t help but feel that she might be right. Watching her play, learning the ropes like I did those years ago has made me reflect on my own game and about how I over complicate it these days. Remind me to get her on here for a guest post through the eyes of a beginner, if nothing else she’s quite the wordsmith.

Ok, so the hand. Low stakes full-ring fixed limit hold’em over on ’stars. I haven’t played against the opponent involved in this hand much before so I’m classifying him the same way I classify all unknowns at these levels:

Terrible until proven otherwise.

As a side note that “arrogance” gets me into trouble sometimes. Truth is though that I’m not really an arrogant person by nature. I guess you could say that I’m preprogrammed to expect my random opponents to play crap online, think about some of the random players you witness and then ask yourself if I’m being unreasonable. Anyway, I’m rambling… the hand:

I’m dealt, in early-middle (UTG+3) position:

It’s folded to me and I limp. No special reason, I might raise this here some of the time also. 3 players to my left call and the SB raises. The BB, myself and everyone else calls. 6 runners.

Important question: What do you put the SB on?

The flop comes:

I have an overpair to the flop and I’m putting the SB on a strong pocket pair or a strong ace.

SB bets, BB folds and I raise.

Two reasons for my raise. Firstly anyone who calls/raises behind likely has the 4 and secondly it helps me to define the SB’s hand. It’s folded to the SB who re-raises.

Now I’m thinking he definitely has a big pair. The real question is what does he think I have? At the moment I haven’t done a lot to define my hand and could have everything from a diamond flush draw to A4/K4 is plausible. I’m not done with this hand.

I call.

My intention is to bluff again if the right card comes. The right card could be anything (I could still convince him I have a 4) but I’m thinking any diamond, maybe an Ace (if my read is right he has a big pair… only one of those is aces) or of course the 8. If he checks the turn I’ll likely bet any card though.

The turn comes:

And he bets.

What do you think he has?

I’m not convinced he has the ace. If he doesn’t and does have a hand like QQ he has to be nervous. I resolve to one last “bluff” at this pot and I raise him.

He folds.

I take down one of the more interesting pots I’ve played in a while.

So, what’s your verdict? Am I crazy, a genius or somewhere in between? I’m leaning towards the former but I’m happy to be proven wrong.