First Impressions Go A Long Way

Not just in poker but in life also. We're going to talk about the poker aspect today though. I believe it was Brian Townsend aka sbrugby aka aba20 who stated this in one of the CardRunners videos he did last week. In Brians example, he was on an alternate name playing against players whom hes never seen before. He set up his image as a extremely loose aggressive player. He didn't mind losing some money in the process, but was lucky enough to actually make some. Then, he would suddenly just switch to a TAG style. In theory he would be getting paid off a lot more since the table viewed him as such a maniac. Also, you can take our home game we play as an example. If someone played with us for the first time and they saw me move in with the Q8o they would think I had no idea what I was doing. That's a totally different story though.

This gets me to 2 hands I played a little while ago. Over ~40 hands the guy was running at 65/2. He was pretty bad along with the other players at 25NL. So I'm in the big blind and the 2 usual limpers are in the pot. I usually dont raise so much but I really just wanted to win the pot here. The crazy guy has been showing down ridiculous hands and I really didn't want to play guessing games; alas he called anyway.

Dealt to trixter23 [Ah Qh]
: calls $0.25
: calls $0.25
Resident Villain: calls $0.15
trixter23: raises $1.75 to $2
Villain: calls $1.75

** FLOP *** [6s 7h 4h]
Villain: checks
trixter23: bets $3
Villain: calls $3

Aside from my flush draw here this was one of the worst possible flops I could have seen. He could have hit any of these cards. When he just called my bet I thought he either had a 6, 4 or a 5. In the few hands I saw from him he would min raise with top pair or over pair if he had one.

*** TURN *** [6s 7h 4h] [7s]
Villain: bets $5
trixter23: raises $15 to $20 and is all-in
Villain: calls $15

This is kind of a weird line by villain. Who checks the flop with all the draws out there then bets when a 2nd 7 comes out? I could have been wrong here but I did think he had a 7, if he did fine I still had outs. It isnt the first time I've made a wrong read.

*** RIVER *** [6s 7h 4h 7s] [2h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Villain: shows [Ad 3h] (a pair of Sevens)
trixter23: shows [Ah Qh] (a flush, Ace high)
trixter23 collected $48.50 from pot

Well, he didnt have a 7, or much of anything for that matter. I wasn't out to set up an image like Brian did, as I really dont see many people paying attention to stuff like that at this level. What they do see though is that I put my money in on a paired board with just a flush draw. I could only be so lucky that guy will stay or someone else at the table picked up on this. Well luck hit me in the face for once and the guy did stay.

Dealt to trixter23 [Kc Qh]
Villain: calls $0.25
trixter23: raises $0.75 to $1
Villain: calls $0.75

Here we had a standard button raise against the same guy. This time I had position on him, so no need to make it so much pre flop.

*** FLOP *** [Ah Td 6d]
Villain: checks
trixter23: bets $1.85
Villain: calls $1.85

Standard continuation bet here, and not surprisingly he calls.

*** TURN *** [Ah Td 6d] [Js]
Villain: bets $14.45 and is all-in
trixter23: calls $14.45

*** RIVER *** [Ah Td 6d Js] [3d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Villain: shows [Tc Jc] (two pair, Jacks and Tens)
trixter23: shows [Kc Qh] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
trixter23 collected $33.25 from pot


Alright well I was obviously calling his turn shove. Why did he shove that much money into the pot though? Well he remembered a couple hands ago when I busted him after I put my money in with a flush draw. This time, he probably thought he was behind on the flop(hopefully) and when he hit 2 pair he saw the flush draw and thought to himself "Ok, he wants to catch his flush with Ax diamonds, then hes going to pay for it." Or thats how envision it lol. Till next time.