This week, I posted the following hand on the blonde poker 'Poker Hand Analysis' board:
Relevant Notes:
The table has been playing very very aggressive, it's 5 handed, and the line-up was us, H@££INGGOL, 2 other solid regulars, and a very loose losing player that had an enormous stack. There was plenty of re-raising preflop and some huge pots. You are only playing the 1 table, you know Hall is playing at least 4, and the other regs are on 2. The 'target' is playing only one table.
Reads:
H@££INGGOL: $5,900
He is playing his usual style, mixing it up with passive and aggressive play based on both his opposition in the hand and his position against the aforementioned opposition. He randomizes his play sufficiently that it's not easy to figure out a likely holding, especially given the depth of his stack. He is a tough player and has been playing well this session.
Loosey Goosey: $11,500
He is probably the main reason the game is running, every time he raises preflop he has either called or re-raised if someone has raised his opening bet. He overplays draws and weak made hands, and has tried some horrendous bluffs that have miraculously got there on the river. Most of his stack came from someone that recently left the table, so none of the other players would have much reason to be on tilt/playing a different style then they would generally play. You are hopeful that you can win a big pot against this person
Hero: $3,900
You have been playing pretty aggressively in position, and have defended your BB religiously for the last 30 minutes, as the bad player is in the SB and has been attacking your blind. You have played position well, mixing it up between calling and raising when your bb gets attacked, and have steadily chipped up mostly at the expense of the losing player.
Onto the Hand:
Hero gets dealt 
in the BB
Hallinggol opens for $70 on the button, and the loose losing player in the small blind makes a small raise to $200, action is on you:
Action: Hero just called, and so did H@ll:
Flop comes down 
, and the loose player surprisingly checks:
Flop Response
Newmanseye: "Fold, I smell pocket twos."
Snoopy: "I would re-re-raise pre-flop and try and take it down there and then. Sandwiched between two players with a good chance of overcards, you're going to make it difficult for yourself by just calling. The button will probably fold, but the small blind is likely to call, leaving you in position with a strong hand against a weak player."
Alex Martin: "I'm isolating preflop. A small raise purely to get this heads-up and get rid of H@l."
ifm: "I say check call, horribly passive i know but i am fearful of being outplayed later in the hand if the pot becomes too big."
Dubai: "I hate 4 betting pre but if the reason you are playing is because the sb is the Mark of the table then 4 betting to around 600-700 given you said he doesn't ever pass is the best play here. You isolate the value at the table, shut out a decent opponent (I've played Frederik a fair bit and he wont call here very often) and you have position over the Mark. You don't wanna be re-raising pre and hoping to win it there or you might as well do this with J-2o. You wanna swell a pot wth position against an opponent who overplays weak made hands as you have said."
AdamG: "I'd be reraising pre flop to isolate our 'target' and let him overplay his weak made hands when/if he makes small pair. i'm glad to take the pot preflop as there enough in there and wouldn't sit tight and call here as it's giving value to player 3 and we would be oop all hand, if no J comes, we don't know where we are. Therefore I would re-raise preflop to $700 given that opener was $70, he can only call/shove here with a small range of hands and the loosey goosey can call with anything he wants because if he flat calls I believe we're definately ahead, if raisy daisy, i'm willing to go AI pre vs loosey Goosey hoping for 2 overs A-K, A-Q or 9-9, 10-10."
doubleup: "From what I know of H@££'s play he is quite capable of calling a reasonable raise here as we are signalling our hand (actually overplaying it a touch) and OOP - so raising unless huge will just create a big pot oop and we will have to c-bet any flop (which works a lot until it doesn't and usually chooses to doesn't when we are doublestacked). Calling limits any info and all 3 players go to the flop with undefined hands - this is probably a better situation for us than setting ourselves up as the target for the other two."
The Turn & River
As you recall, the flop was , and the loose player surprisingly checked.
Action was on us, and what I ultimately ended up doing was betting $400, H@ll called, and the SB folded
Turn comes 
for a board of and the pot is about $1,400 and our stack size remaining is about $3,300
Action, hero checked, and h@ll bet $800
After H@ll bets $800, hero decides to call.
River comes 
for a board of , pot is $3,000 and we have about $2,500 behind, action on hero
Action, hero checks, and H@ll goes all-in which covers you, $2500 to call, pot $5,500
Action on hero.
The Reveal
The reveal of this week's HotW is that we called the river bet, Hall turned over 6-6 and we scooped the pot.
The Conclusion
The interesting thing in this hand is that given the read we had on the small blind, his check on the flop is almost certainly a nuts or nothing hand, so when we bet, H@ll can call with a wide range of hands, with position, and see what the SB does, and use the leverage of the SB's image against us. If the SB folds, then the image he can try to project is that "even though it's likely the SB has a monster, I still called, so it doesn't scare me".
This is especially important given the way we played our hand preflop, because with the preflop action we are effectively turning our hand face up, so putting all that information together, it made it very likely that villain was in good position to try and run a deep stack bluff on us.
Sometimes its okay for our opponents to know our hand, if we can use that information to our advantage, and even though it was clear to H@ll what we had, we knew this and managed to sell enough weakness to win a nice pot. Sometimes we end up looking stupid when he turns over top set, but given all the information at our disposal, we played the hand to maximise our equity and it worked out well. On this occasion.