Play the man, not the cards.

It’s been a while since I’ve won at the Hustler $1/2 NL, and last night was shaping up to be a continuation of that saga. I was basically beating myself early on – pot-committing myself with Jacks after an Ace and a flush draw flopped. Putting a guy all in with a suited A-K vs. his Aces. I was well on my way to tilting and stacking off my Vegas bankroll (trip coming up soon). Third buy-in. Here we go …

The big stack was in complete command on the table. Name was Jim, youngish guy. One of those guys you can tell are solid players just by looking at them. He was three seats to my left, and sitting on a stack of about $360. I hadn’t tangled with him yet, and I didn’t want to at that point. There were enough fish there for the both of us, I figured.

A new guy showed up and sat directly to Jim’s left. I don’t know his name – let’s call him Mike for now. He won a few pots from people at the table, yadda yadda … got to be the second biggest stack. At some point, he rivered a bigger set than the one that Jim had flopped, and doubled through on him. Understandably, Jim started steaming aloud, vowing to take Mike down at some point in the night.

Immediately, the gears in my head started turning. I watched Jim carefully, wondering if he was going to tilt or if he was solid enough to keep playing good poker in spite of the sick beat he’d just taken. I didn't have to wait long to find out.

The very next hand, I picked up 7-6 offsuit on the button. A few people limped in, including Jim and Mike, and I decided to take a flop as well. The blinds didn’t raise, and the flop came Q-8-6, rainbow.

The blinds checked, Jim bet $10, and it was folded around to me. I was about to muck, but something told me my implied odds were amazing here. My hand was pretty weak at this point – I had bottom pair, and a backdoor straight as a redraw. I didn’t think Jim was bluffing, but it seemed pretty clear to me that if I somehow managed to outplay or bad beat him on this hand, it would be enough to tilt him for the rest of the night and he would stack off what he had left in front of him. I called, and the blinds folded.

The turn was another 6.

Jim immediately bet out $14, and I pushed for my remaining $32. He called with a Queen, and I doubled up. He went through the roof. He tried his best to play well the rest of the night, but his best turned out not to be good enough. He won and lost some pots over the next hour, and eventually I finished him off for his last $85 when he pushed on me with a flush draw. Unfortunately, he called it a night at that point and didn't rebuy, but I didn’t have too much to complain about. Jim had single-handedly taken me from a losing to a winning night. For that, I was grateful.

Last night was yet another example of a situation where the cards didn’t really matter that much. Sure, it helped a lot that I got lucky and turned that third 6. But in that spot, it was correct for me to call with the worst hand, even though my immediate pot odds were not sufficient. Not only did I have the implied odds of doubling through the guy on this hand – I was also fairly certain that making my hand would turn the second best player at the table into one of the worst. I could probably take more money off him later, as well as eliminating one of the biggest threats to my control of the table.

It’s important to look for those situations at the poker table that will pay big dividends later on. Find them, exploit them. Make that money.