Acting Strong when you’re Strong (Follow-Up)

So last night was the big home game, and I had a couple of opportunities to practice what I just preached in the last post. I flopped some huge hands early in the session, and each time I was faced with the question of how best to get paid off. (FYI: Our home game is a no limit hold’em cash game, with $0.10 and $0.25 blinds.)

Hand A
I picked up the 7s-6c in the cutoff seat, and decided to limp in after several people limped in front of me. The button folded, and the small and big blind called and checked, respectively. The flop was nice – Qh-7c-7h. Ben, a loose-aggressive player, bet out $1.25 into the pot of $1.50 from the small blind. It was folded around to me, and I was pretty sure that Ben was holding a Queen only. Since he is an aggressive player, I figured a call would probably get him to bet out again on the turn. A raise here would probably scare him off. So I just called -- standard play.

The turn brought the 7d, giving me four of a kind. Ben, as expected, bet out again – this time for $1.50. Now, how to get him to pay off my quads with his full house? Instead of smooth-calling his little bet, I decided I was going to come in for a raise. However, I didn’t want to completely announce that I was holding the case 7. I decided to “Hollywood” him a little bit, and represent that I also held a Queen.

“I think we’re probably chopping here [i.e., splitting the pot with a tied hand],” I said to him casually, “but I’m going to raise just in case you don’t have a Queen.” I made it $4.50 to go, and he nodded his head dutifully and called.

The river was a King, which wasn’t the greatest card for me because now he might fear a bigger boat. Ben checked to me, and I considered making a small bet that he would have to call. But it occurred to me that he would probably have to call all in, since the turn bet had knocked his stack down to about $5 and the pot was $13. I put him all in, and he called. He didn’t seem all that surprised to see my quads, which, considering my little speech, I guess I can’t blame him for.

Maybe acting isn’t my strong suit?

Hand B
A little later, I was in the in big blind with As-Kc. Nice. I love picking up big hands in the big blind, because I get to see what everyone else does before I decide how strong I want to play them. Especially when it's the Ace of spades. Just a beautiful card.

Anyway, there was an early position limper, and then Sean raised it up to $1 in middle position. Sean is a tight-aggressive player, which normally would be considered a good thing. But unfortunately, he has two major holes in his game: inability to extract the maximum from his opponents and inability to get away from second best hands. Another thing that isn’t necessarily a hole but hurts him is a huge fear of being bluffed. Not the best combination of liabilities for a no limit hold’em player.

It was folded around to me, and I re-raised to $3.25. The limper folded, and Sean thought for a moment before calling. The flop was almost too good: Ac-Ad-4s. A monster for me, but normally trip Aces don’t get paid off all that well. So I had to ask myself, How do I make sure I get something out of this for once? I don’t want to scare Sean out of the pot. But if I check, I’ll have two options if he bets. I can either check-call or check-raise him. Either of these moves looks scary to most hands he could have that don't contain an Ace.

What I want to do is make it look like I’m trying to steal the pot from him. With a board like A-A-x, most players just won’t put you on the Ace until your actions say that you have it. Furthermore, just about no one is expecting you to bet a flop like that if you’re holding an Ace. If I bet here, I can really use Sean’s fear of being bluffed against him. I decided to make a smallish bet relative to the pot size ($3.75 into $6.85) and hope to the poker gods that he was holding a pocket pair. A bigger bet might look even more like a steal, but there's a chance Sean will fold to it anyway just because it's so large.

After I bet, I thought I would try and augment my deceptive play with a little more acting. Sean is an experienced enough player to recognize that typically weak means strong and strong means weak when it comes to physical tells. Initially, I considered acting strong in hopes that he would read me as weak. Still, that wouldn’t be convincing enough. Even better would be if I could act like I was acting strong. That is, I wanted to appear that I was weak and trying to appear strong. Do all the things players do when they're afraid but are trying their hardest not to show it. I pulled my hat down low so that he couldn’t see my eyes. I balled my hands into fists and used them to cover my mouth. I sat there like a statue, waiting for him to act, hoping he would take the bait.

He thought for a while, and called.

The turn was a bit of a scare card for me – the Jack of clubs. I was still pretty sure I had him beat, but immediately I started getting nervous. I had put him on a high-ish pair, and if he’d had pocket Jacks, he had just made a full house on me. Similarly, if he had smooth-called on the flop trying to trap me with A-J, he had just made an even better full house. I wasn’t all that happy to see it.

Still, this is poker, not tiddly-winks. If my charade was going to work, I had to keep looking like I was bluffing him. I bet out $5.75, throwing the chips out aggressively and in his direction. I was acting like I wanted him out of the pot, and I have to admit, the wee bit of nervousness I felt from seeing the Jack come out probably helped me to appear afraid of a call.

Sean thought a little longer this time, and the longer he thought the more convinced I became that he was holding either pocket Queens or pocket 10’s. He would have re-raised me preflop with Kings, and he would not have thought this long with any Ace or with pocket Jacks. He definitely would have folded a pair smaller than 10’s to my re-raise before the flop. Eventually Sean decided to push all in. I called and showed him the bad news. He groaned and showed me pocket Queens.**

I felt for him, he was in a rough spot there. But I was also kinda satisfied with myself. See, Sean is a full-time actor, and probably sees bad performances all the time. So maybe my acting ability isn’t quite as terrible as I’d thought; I had just managed to act my way into $30 worth of his chips. :-P


**As a side note, I think him losing that pot ended up costing him even more money later on. He got bluffed out of a very large pot while holding pocket Queens when there was a King on the board. He bet and called a raise on the flop, then checked and thought forever before folding to a big bet on the turn. I can’t be sure, but something tells me that losing the pot to me with Queens earlier was bouncing around in his head when he made the laydown later in the evening. Ouch.