In a recent poker tournament, I was in the BB with 8-5 off suit. The blinds were 250/500 with a small ante. I had about 14,000 total chips.
There was a tiny raise from a middle position player to 1115, just barely more than a min raise. This set off a calling frenzy from the table. After four other poker players including the small blind called, I decided to take a stab at it and call as well, getting nearly 8-1 (615 more into a pot of almost 5,000).
Out of position with a hand like this, I’m really hoping to flop two pair or a straight or something phenomenal. Also, in early position, I will probably play this for a check raise if I hit it this hard and let the original raiser or some of the later positioned poker players lead out at the board. If I miss, I will easily check-fold this hand; it’s not something I’m going to get attached to unless I hit big.
The flop comes out J-9-9.
This is a flop that could hit a lot of players in different ways. A lot of late position players might call with suited q-10 or 10-8 and might have hit their straight draw. A suited Ace-9 could have definitely smashed this flop. So I decide to follow the small blind with a check and see what happens, prepared to drop the hand. The original raiser bets 2000 (less than half the pot). Everyone else folds. Now when I look at this, and no one showed any interest in this pot except the preflop aggressor, I see opportunity. This is a somewhat scary board, as is any paired board in a multiway pot. If I want to represent that I have three nines, I have to figure out if it would make sense to another player or not. I called a small raise from the big blind, so I could very easily have a nine in my hand. I decide to check-raise to 6,000. If I had trips on this board, I think I would be done slow playing it, but I still don’t think I’d want to go ahead and bet 13,000 into a 7k pot.
Villain calls the extra 4k and we see a turn. It is an 8. I have 7k left in my stack. I could either give up on my bluff, or continue course, risking my entire stack. I decide that the player must not have been too confident because they only called my re-raise, so either they have the nuts with a hand like pocket jacks, or they might be willing to let their doubtful hand go. I shove to 7k and the villain folds, showing KK for an overpair. I oblige him and show the bluff.
