Hand Of The Day #40

$1/$1 NLHE - 5.22.10 - Dave's Poker Pit (Home Game)

It's a straddle pot to $2, and basically everyone limped. I'm the SB, and I look down at Ad As. I decide to just call. If I raise to anything less than $20, then there will be many callers at this table. I would rather play a small pot out of position with AA, then a larger preflop pot with 4-5 players. Also, it is still possible that the BB or Straddle could get frisky. They don't.

7-8 players see a Flop of 5d 4d 2d. I decide to lead out for $11 with my Pair + Straight Flush Draw. A couple of players call. The Button (DougPoker) raise to $51, $40 on top. Being a Home game, many of us have played a lot of poker together over the past few years. I know that he's got a strong hand, probably a Flush. So I quickly ship it All-In for $96 on top of his raise, $147 total. Everyone folds around to the Button.

He goes into deep thought, and starts doing a combination of thinking out loud and talking to me. He also turns his hand over to get a read on me, K9d. He's much better at Tells and stuff than I am. So I try to be as Neutral as possible, especially since he's sitting right next to me. I do a little talking back to him, but not much. I know that too much talking can be considered a Tell, as well as being dead quiet. But on the inside, I'm thinking, "Fuck! I just lit a match to $150."

After about two minutes of thinking and talking, he grabs his cards, and folds. Now the question is to show or not to show. I decide to just show the Ad. I could have show both of them to try to put him on Tilt. But it was early in the session, and I'm not sure that he would have Tilted from that. Plus, I didn't want to show that I just limped with AA.

Showing just one card was the right choice. He was thinking out loud about this hand for at least the next 15 minutes. Plus it was the topic of conversation at out table for the next hour.

He did run out the Board after he folded, and another Diamond was nowhere to be found.

As for his laydown, even though he had the K-high flush, it was the 3rd Nuts at the time, or the same as the Q-high Flush. 63d was the Straight Flush. A3d was also a Straight Flush, but it's the same as an A-high Flush in this situation. This was a limped pot, and I'm the SB. So having the 63d or the Axd was a possibility. Plus, this was certainly not my normal play, so it threw off his radar.

Even though he was getting a decent price to call ($96 to win around $235-$245), I don't think it was a terrible fold. He went with his gut. He is not known for the Hero Fold, so I must say that I was impressed (and grateful).