Effing variance

I played the most bizarre hand the other day. I had never seen anything like it before. It was a casino $2/$5 game.

First let me describe the villan. He is a regular. He plays in the game far more than I do and most would consider me a reg. He is a fine player. He is probably too ABC, but that means he plays a a game that is a bit too tight to be optimally profitable, but regularly crushes the casuals in the game.

Overall a perfectly fine, profitable player, just not very flexible or creative.

What makes it tough is that if you talk to him about strategy, he doesn't correctly understand why he should make the plays he makes. He will be right 90% of the time with the obvious stuff, then get another 7 or 8% right while using the wrong logic. He is playing with 97% accuracy, but not knowing why. Furthermore, when he gets into strange situations and you discuss the hand later, he will tell you his logic and it won't make any sense, but he will compound it by playing weirdly for the next few hands trying to show why he thinks he is right.

Basically a pretty good ABC player who crushes the game, but occasionally flakes. To confuse it, his flakes are often the right move, but for the wrong reasons. It has occurred to me many times that he might actually be trolling me in these weird discussions, but I don't think so.

Anyway, on to the hand. We were sitting next to each other at a $2/$5 game that was pretty juicy ($1000 max buy in). We each had about $4000 in front of us because it was so juicy. It had gotten short handed though and I was thinking of packing it up. He had played a hand against another player in a strange manner. When we were quietly discussing the hand among ourselves after the fact his logic didn't add up and I was pushing back against him a bit and I think I started to irritate him

So we are playing 5 handed. He is in the big blind, I am UTG. I get dealt KcQc. I open for $25 ( pretty much the standard opening raise in the game). In this game, preflop was generally mild and most of the +EV came post flop. One other player calls and then it gets around to the villain in the BB. I see him kind of smirk, then think for a second and finally reraise to $65.

I almost immediately fold, but then I think about our discussion and I realized he was in one of his weird phases trying to justify prior logic. So after some thought, I decide to call, my plan is to not get too crazy, but to take advantage of any strange play by him. I could easily see a flop where I flop a straight and him a set and I stack him.

I don't plan on getting deep without a monster, but I can see a few hands where that happens so I call expecting to lose the $65, but on a rare occasion win $4000. The 3rd player folds.

There is $65+$65+$25 or about $155 in the pot. The flop comes Ks, Qh, Js. I have top two. It is the best/worst flop I can ask for. I have a really good hand, but we are deepstacked and it is reasonable to think he can have a better hand.

He bets $100. I raise to $300 hoping he either folds or I get a check on the turn.

He instantly shoves. He says he is all in. Instantly.

I am 99% sure I am going to fold, but I take my time to think it through. I am pretty sure I am folding simply because my plan was not to get to deep with my hand unless I had an absolute monster but I want to think it through.

The more I think about it, the more I am sure that I am good. I don't think he shoves anything but a flush draw. I try and put him on a range and make it mathematical, but it is tough given our history and his weird phase. I cannot imagine he is over shoving a set simply because he has to fear a straight by me and would want to get paid by worse. I think a large weighting of his range is AsQs or Qs10s. He also might have Axs.

I also consider that he might not realize how deep we both are. When he gets crazy, he gets crazy.

I am all over the map with my thinking, but at the end of the day, I remember my plan of not to get to deep. I finally decide that I want to see his reaction, so I tell him that i have a monster and I show him that I have top two.

He immediately turns over his hand and shows AsQs. He has middle pair, nut flush and a straight draw (plus a royal flush draw).

We are literally about 50/50 flipping. He is ever so slightly ahead, but the amount already in the pot more than makes up for it.

I explain that I haven't folded yet, and he says he knows and that I can call if I want to.

I go back and forth for a few seconds wondering if I want to have my whole night be based on a coin flip, but at the end of the day, the EV is the EV and I cannot really turn down a ever so slightly positive EV play that is 100% guaranteed. Literally there is no hidden information.

So I shrug and call.

Of course I lose. He rivers the 3s.

My proudest moment was that I handled it totally as a pro. I didn't steam even the slightest. I congratulated him on his win, I counted out the amount of his chips from my stack (I had him covered) and rebought. I was even willing to discuss the hand with him afterwards.

As we were talking, he explained that when I showed my hand, he wanted me to fold so he instantly showed his hand to show how strong he was so that I would fold.

I explained that I was going to fold until I actually saw what his hand was. He kept saying that he showed to encourage me to fold.

He was wrong in showing, but he got the right result.