Last night, I was out and about and decided to stop by a game for a couple of hours. The game was a $2/$5 Hold’em game and was a little slow when I arrived. There were a few chips on the table, but nothing out of the ordinary, and the play was pretty snug. I decided to come in and liven it up a little bit, if nothing else. I was straddling a couple times an orbit, raising and re-raising a lot, showing down some bluffs, and succeeded in getting one or two players to join me in loosening up some.

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Within an hour, the game had thinned out a little and we had built up some decent stacks. One guy had gotten hot and ran his stack up to $2,000 and by the time we got to the hand in question, he had run it back down, was sitting with his last $80, and seemed to be itching to get that in the middle as well.

It was straddled for $10 and two players called. I had everyone covered and made it $30 when it got to me. That is a very small raise for me and I would usually make it $50 in that spot, but I expected the guy with $80 to shove and wanted to be able to re-raise to isolate or, even better, get one of the other guys caught in a huge pot with a hand they usually wouldn’t get many chips in with.

The player to my immediate left was the most thinking player in the game and was sitting with around $1,200 after having a rough night so far. Thus, when he called my $30, it added a wrinkle I wasn’t expecting but that I didn’t mind. The player with $80 did as expected and shot it in there and the two players who had limped for $10 got out of the way.

I made it $230 total and the player to my left went into the tank. After a couple of minutes, he said, “I’m all in,” and put me in a spot where I had to make a decision. I had pocket queens and up until he went all-in, I was sure I had the best hand, but it was around $900 more to me.

My first thought was that this guy had to have a hand. He wasn’t putting over $1,100 in without a strong hand and he should have aces or kings there most of the time. Then, I thought a little more and decided that while he should have a good hand, I couldn’t see him risking a five-way hand for $30 pre-flop. He wouldn’t have tanked quite so long had he actually had a huge hand since he would have had to plan for it to play out just like it did.

At that point, I was giving him credit for a real hand, but not at the very top of his range, which knocked out the only two hands I was in bad shape against and left me feeling like I was probably at worst flipping against A-K or had him notched if he had J-J or T-T. It was a big enough bet, though, that I ran through the hand one more time looking at it from his perspective.

He was the only player at the table who knew and understood that I was capable and willing to isolate there by raising to $230 with a wide range of hands, possibly as weak as Q-J or Q-T and likely with any pair or any decent ace. He also knew I would fold a large part of my range when he shoved, so there was a chance he was bluffing, although I didn’t credit that as being much of his range just because even though he may legitimately think to run that play, I don’t think he could actually pull the trigger on risking over $1,000 on a bluff very often.

After running through the hand in my head for a brief period, I was sure that calling there was the right play and was going to be very surprised if he turned up aces or kings, even though when he first moved in, my initial instinct was that those were the hands he would have. The added layers of information were important in this situation and when I showed him my queens, I saw in his face that I had him dominated long before I saw the pocket tens he was holding.

Court Harrington has worked on the business side of the poker industry in roles including tournament reporting for PocketFives, radio hosting for PokerRoad Radio, coaching for the WSOP Academy and privately, and a variety of behind-the-scenes responsibilities for poker media businesses. He also plays in cash games and tournaments. Harrington is currently doing consulting work and exploring business opportunities outside of the poker industry. You can contact him at Court@CourtHarrington.com.