As Long as I Don't Get Cold Decked

MikeL says that all the time and it's usually pretty funny. Today I played 6.5 hours of on shift 40, and it was just kind of awesome. Like sure I lost every pot and simply couldn't get any traction whatsoever, but just the idea of getting to sit in a game for 6.5 hours straight, and get paid to do so, is good enough for me to consider the day a tremendous success. I played alright, made some mistakes here and there, but in general was happy with the the way the things I could control turned out. I'm pretty much abandoning the new schedule in anticipation of finally getting my promotion to full time status (which comes with all sorts of goodies, 12 hours to clock that I'm usually at the casino anyway, sick time, vacation time, benefits...the whole nine yards that real employees actually get), so for now it's just back to being aware of my surroundings and mental energy reserves and getting the fuck out of dodge when they aren't favorable. I did a poor job of that yesterday, but Friday's are always sticky. Traffic is a mess from like 2pm until literally 8 or 9, so there just isn't a good answer. I stayed too long, played bad, got angry, etc, etc. But we live and learn.

On to the hands of the day, I will give you two quickies. First, I raise with AK in pretty early position and villain, on my immediate left, cold calls...immediately. Like he doesn't hesitate, doesn't hem or haw, just gets right in there. There are some other calls and we take the flop maybe 5 ways.

K65ddc

I bet, villain raises, and everyone else clears out. Let's enter Jesse's brain:

It's fucking great to be me right now. He has a shitty king and I'm going to win all the bets I can from him. He'd make smoov with a set to tarp me, and probably wouldn't raise anything like 99. He is capable of hero folding, so I don't want to do something silly like c/r the turn, I'll just 3 bet him immediately and he'll shrug and call down and I'll win. I hope he doesn't have a flush draw because that actually has some equity.

So I 3 bet immediately, he calls, and we see a turn of:

K65ddc-3c (I could have these board cards slightly off, but there were 3 cards between 6 and 3 on this board and two flush draws)

I bet and he...raises. LOL que? My decision making machinery kind of breaks down here and I revert to bad habits.

Huh, I just got raised on the turn and I only have one pair. Time to call down.

I don't think very hard about what he's got, but it's completely obvious if you spend even 5 seconds to ponder it. Like, step by step here we go. He raised the flop, so he has either a flush draw or a king (villain probably isn't aggro enough on the flop to raise something like 88...and he probably is aggro enough to 3 bet it preflop). He doesn't have a set . There is almost no chance he just made a straight or two pair because I mean just look at the hand he would have to have for that to be true. Cold call 53s, then raise the flop with bottom pair? 74s? Villain just doesn't have that kind of spew in him. So what does he have? He has a king that just picked up a flush draw, dummy. K9-KQ of clubs. That's all, that's it, those 4 combos make up like 94% of his range after you discount everything else. So what should I do? I should 3 bet. What do I do? I just call. River please

K65ddc-3c-9r

I check and as I'm calling his bet declare "as long as I don't get cold decked" and he responds "you just did" and shows me the K9cc. The 6th street chatter is pretty hilarious ("I knew I was behind but I had too many outs!") and I manage to bite my tongue pretty well, because I mean given my image of him his turn raise should be horrendous, but because I suck at poker I let him off the hook and didn't charge him the 3rd bet when he was behind and let him dictate exactly how many bets were going into the pot (had he missed the river I'm sure this would have been a FSDR). That's what happens when you don't play your A game I suppose. Moving right along...

The overnight spot raises and I 3-bet with AJo. The same villain from the previous hand calls 3 cold (his range is super, duper narrow) and we see the flop three ways:

655cc

I bet and they both call. This is troubling, but an interesting opportunity has just become available. I happen to have AJo, which is pretty big trouble against villain's range at this point. However, if I barrel a blankish turn he's going to be in a very difficult spot and have to fold some hands that beat me (specifically the 12 combos of AQ, and maybe even AK that has to be discounted but I honestly don't think he caps preflop) with the fishy spot left to act behind him. And she has, well, shit box basically. So away we go.

4r

She checks, I fire the cannon and villain goes into the tank for a few seconds but I immediately know he's about to fold exactly one of the two hands I just mentioned, forfeiting practically all of his equity to me. His read on the spot here just isn't up to code, because her c/c on the flop pretty much means she has UI high cards. I mean there is some chance she has me beat, but I'm definitely way ahead of her range (it's the widest of the three of us by a huge margin) and this bet is just glorious. Villain folds, the spot insta-calls (so fast in fact that I'm a little concerned). The river peels off:

Qr

She checks and I insta-check back, hoping she missed it (hands like QT were definitely still in her range here). She shakes her head and turns over the A7ss for a clean miss. I roll the AJ and villain (I think) realizes what just happened. I scoop up the $700 pot quietly but also....