$5-$10NL Folded Pocket 10′s on the River
My Hand: 10 10
My position: Button
There comes a time in a hand when you need to ask yourself, “just what would my opponent playing here?” This hand that I played in a $5-$10nl game at Bellagio was no exception.
I was sitting on the button with pocket tens. All players folded to my opponent who was 2 seats off the button in seat 6. He was a new player, who I had just seen sitting at the $10-$20nl game around the corner. Usually, when I see somebody coming from that game, I assume that they are an above average player in a lower game such as $5-$10nl. This opponent raised the pot to $100, way overbetting the pot. I decided that this type of play must have been from a bad beat over at $10-$20nl or just a bad adjustment to new stakes, so I made the call. Everybody else folded their hands.
The flop was 776 rainbow. My opponent fires $200 right at me, showing almost no fear. I thought for a second, wondering if he had an overpair, but his aggressiveness looked more like weakness and that he was trying to get me to fold, so I made the call. The turn card came an 8 and my opponent bet two stacks, $400. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go any farther in the hand, but after a minute or two of thinking, I made a crying call, hoping that he would check a bluff on the river rather than bet it.
The river was the worst possible card that could have come, a 5. My opponent puts me all-in for another $380 and I feel like I paid off a bigger hand than I had anticipated. Any other card would have been better because now any pocket pair except 22, 33, and 1010 would beat my hand. The only hand that I could possibly be ahead of would be a total bluff by something such as AK or AQ, but why would my opponent be betting such a hand all the way like this?
I folded my tens, and my opponent peaked at his hole cards, flipping over the top card which was a 6. Later on, when I was about to leave, I asked him what he had and he told me that he had J6, his favorite hand, and that he thought I was calling him with over cards. What he told me somewhat made sense though. I’ve found that the majority of the time that a player makes an overbet before the flop, they have a weaker than normal hand. I’ve seen a player raise a $90 bet to $500 and shown 94 offsuit proclaiming “If you make it $90 before the flop with $10 blinds, I’m going to raise you to $500 every time… keep the game friendly!”
Although I doubt his story was true, I’m sure I’ll find out how sincere he was about his hand by playing with him more and revealing what his favorite hands are.
