getting better.
so i'm still far from being an awesome poker player, but there's a hand i played last night that i'm fairly happy with. Someone can tell me if i played it in error, because it's possible that i should have either conceded the hand early or played it more aggressive from the outset.
i was in big blind with 45 off suit. A fairly predictable tight player raises in early position to $12. There were two callers before me. i was out of absolute position but in decent relative position, so i decided to do a loose call to see if i could connect. easy to throw away if i don't.
The board came 2x3xJx rainbow. I check. Villain bets out $25. There was one caller before me, i'm closing the action, sure i'll see another card for $25 into a $100 pot.
Turn comes a blank. 8x i think. I check. Villain bets another absurdly small amount, i think it was $30. Based on the way he's been playing all night, i actually put him on an overpair, either QQ or KK. Other guy folds. Villain has about $200 behind. I contemplate raising him, but the 8 doesn't do much to create a scary board, and if i raise a small amount, he's not going to fold and he would then be committed to the river even if he thought he was beat. I don't want to push all in unless i feel like i have a good chance to take the pot down *plus* good fold equity. He's a tight player, but he's not so tight that he's going to fold an overpair on such a dry board, especially since my aggression has at times shown to be a slightly loose range (i went all-in on the flush draw to get someone to fold, but they ended up pushing in and i caught my flush on the river). But $30 is cheap for the pot size, and i think my hand is disguised enough that if i hit my straight i can check-raise and take his stack (i had him covered). If i miss, i miss. So i call to see the river.
River comes a J. This changes everything. If i was in the villain's head, i wouldn't put me on a flopped set that full-housed, but i *could* see me playing top pair with a kicker i'm not comfortable with like QJ or J10. The J is a big scare card, so i decide to take over the aggression. I think about the size of the pot and decide to put out a $70 bet. Not a huge bet with the pot size, but with the scare card, with me taking over the aggression, and with him having been a generally super tight player that wanted to nurse his stack and not get too short, i thought it was decent - small enough to make it seem like i wanted a call because i hit it, but large enough that he wouldn't want to make a reluctant call.
he thought about it for long enough that i was convinced he had QQ or KK and he felt like he got rivered. He finally gave a slightly exasperated sigh and folded his hand. I almost turned it over to show because i hadn't turned over a bluff all night and at a different time of night it would have been useful to loosen my image so that more people would try to catch me, but at that point i was close to the end of my session, so decided my tight image would do better to make sure i didn't get in trouble in the tail end.
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the plan right now is to get some food, and then come back and keep ticking off my big to-do list. A few hours will probably go into some website development, an hour or so will go into fall show design for hermiston.