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 Making HUGE Laydowns
I just recently forced myself out of a huge slump. After losing over and over again for months and being accused of tight play and having predictable cards, I studied the game and tweaked my style alot. Playing heads up with my friend every day has the greatest contribution to this.
I try to keep my opponent confused. Instead of flopping a set and checking it down to the river and then making a huge check/raise, I wait for a hand like 4-4 when my opponent raises and the flop comes 4-A-7 and then overbetting the pot into him. This usually causes him to make a mistake like pushing with a hand like A-Q.
The hardest thing for me is making tough calls and tough folds when I either think I'm ahead or behind. This hand came up a few weeks ago when I was playing at a 1/2 NL live table at my local card room.
There are 6 players. Folding my first couple hands, I get a good feel for the table. Alot of big flop bets and then check downs. I racked up my 100 to about 250 exploiting this table's weakness until I ran into this hand:
It is folded around to me in the small blind. The big blind is a relatively tight player who, from what I recall, showed down the best hand most of the time when he was in it to the river. The main thing I noted was that he slowplayed every time he had a big hand and check/raised his opponent on the river.
I look down at 7-7 and make it $8 to go. He calls.
The flop is a dream: 10-10-7
Without hesitation I immediately bet out $14 to make it look like a steal, and got a quick call to my surprise.
The turn was an ace.
Figuring this card couldn't scare him off much, I put in a huge bet of $60 to a $44 pot. He looked at the board for a while and I had a bad feeling I may have bet too big or should have checked the turn. After about a minute of thinking, he said "Ok, I'm all in".
Great. Now I'm the one with the decision. I have $82 in the pot and about 170 left in front of me and he has me covered by 10 or 20 bucks. I almost called instantly but then I started thinking about which hands would this guy be shoving his whole stack in with that I could beat. Q-10? J-10? Surely he wouldn't risk his whole stack with this. Maybe he got really lucky with 10-7 or A-10. I kept thinking I would normally make this call instantly. Although I couldn't even imagine folding this hand, the more I thought about it, the more positive I was that I was beat.
After about two or three minutes of pondering this call, I showed my 7-7 and folded with about the sickest feeling in my stomach. I said, you like your A-10? He gave me this crazy look and smiled and said he usually doesn't show.
He flipped over AA.
I had the most amazing feeling and couldn't believe how I got away from that hand. One minute I flop a boat and the next minute I'm thinking about making the hugest laydown of my poker career.
Anyone else have a story about making a big laydown for all of their money, or any thoughts about my laydown against this guy?
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