[jimmytheg]

i actually put an incredibly bad beat on someone today....200 max nl game, i have around 240, other guy has more. on the button i have two black 10's...folded around to me i make a raise to 10 (blinds are 2-4 in this game), bb comes over the top for 15 more. my thinking was he might have read me for a steal raise, and was trying to resteal because i have been playing a bit aggresive and winning lots of small pots. So far in this session I havent really had a monster hand, but won about 40 by picking up small pots without ever seeing a turn. But I didnt want to come back over the top of him, because i couldnt call an all in if he moved, and i didnt want to put 40 bucks or so in the pot preflop and then just fold...so i called. His small reraise would normally scream aces to me, but ive played with this guy before and he doesn't screw around with small reraises with aces or kings, he tries to win the pot right there. So right away i was thinking he had either jacks, queens, or AK.

Flop come 8spades 10 Jspades. I have medium set, but im not sure if it's good. He's first to act, and he checks to me. Now, i was thinking this means he either has AK, or the JJ i was afraid of. So, I bet out about half the pot, 20, to see what he does, knowing he would dump the AK, but probably smooth call with JJ. I wasnt expecting a raise, because he had seen me be aggresive, and probably wanted me to bet off my whole stack to him, instead of just taking the pot right then and there. When he just called my 20 flop bet, I was as close to sure as can be that i was beat. Turn was the 7 of spades, putting the flush draw out there, not a great card for him, but the only hand i could have had that would beat him at that point was AK of spades, and it was possible I had QQ, KK, 1010 or even AA, which is why i wasnt surprised when he checked to me. He expected me to follow through and represent a made flush, which he didnt think I had. Of course, i wasnt about to do that, and checked behind him. I'm positive that the only reason i saw the river card was because the flush draw hit, and not that it scared him, but made him believe i would represent it. We've played together a couple times, and he's seen me represent a flush draw. In fact, a couple days earlier, I had bluffed him off a hand by representing a flush, then showed him the bluff. If that 3rd spade hadnt come, Im pretty sure he would have led at the pot, hoping I would come over the top. Of course, you know what happens next if you are still reading this....

River comes the beautiful 4th 10. He bets, I raise, he moves in, and I happily call with my quads. Horrible suckout, for a nice pot. I guess the moral of this long story is...sometimes percieved aggresion, with position, gets the other guy to slow down enough for you to catch up. If this guy wasnt expecting me to bet strong at him, he would have bet me off the flop and protected his set against a flush draw. But since he thought I was going to do the betting for him, he allowed me to see 2 essentially free cards...a cheap turn and a free river. I only had a 20 percent chance of winning the hand after the turn, but with implied odds i was getting exactly 5 to 1 on my money. And it worked out..... Good times....good times