A forgotten 15/30 Hand (AK gets there)

So it's a beautiful Saturday morning, the sun is out already; it's definitely going to get hot later, and I'm pretty close to crashing. God I hate working graves sometimes lol...

Anyway, I have a couple coworkers who I would classify more as "gamblers" than actual cardplayers, but one of them used to play a lot of live lowball back in the day, so he loves hearing my poker stories from the nights before. So we were talking about Daniel Negranau (I always misspell his name, deal with it) and Rick loves the way that DN reads players, etc etc. First off, I have a ton of respect for DN, in fact, I try to exhibit the same table mannerisms (happy, fun, playful) that he exhibits, minus the metro lol. However, I do not think he "is the best reader in the game" or anything like that, I simply believe he is the most vocal about it. Guys like Barry Greenstein and Phil Ivey make the exact same reads, they just aren't on ESPN trying to show off that they can make those reads. Alright anyway, that being said, I was telling Rick this hand where everyone had me pinned on one hand, then incorrectly assumed I had sucked out on this other guy's hand. That sounds pretty confusing, so onto the hand.

I was dealt A:s:K:d: in the BB...15/30, full table, probably an hour or so into the session (I forgot to include this hand in my original write up, but this would be a hand that helped me get to about +$250 early on in the session). It gets limped in two spots, Russ (taggy Asian guy) raises, folds to me and I 3-bet, called by the limpers and Russ. The flop is something like J73 with two spades. I bet, and it gets called in every spot. Now throughout the hand people have been very talkative, and throughout most of the session people were trying to size everyone up and be like Daniel Negranau (call out other player's hands). Thankfully this went on only when it got headsup or when the person calling out the hand was in the hand (any other time is extremely rude obv). So everyone thinks I have a monster because I 3-bet out of the BB...let's examine why. I'm young, playing pretty tight, and it is 15/30. I've seen some older players simply call with AK or QQ in position against a raise, so I'm thinking very few of these players are aggressive and very few will put me on a whiffed AK after I fire the flop and now I'm about to double barrel this turn...

The turn is a four of spades. Really reaggedy flop, and now there's three spades on the board (and I have the Ace of spades). Unless someone out there has a Jack with a decent kicker, I don't see how they can really call my $30 turn bet. I fire out of the small-blind (I have no choice but to bet imo) and I get called yet again in three spots. "Son of a bitch" I thought to myself, "these players have seen me play...wtf are they calling me with? Guess it doesn't matter, give me a spade please." Queen of spades on the river of course, because Santi runs goooooooot (supposedly).

I fire out yet again, and this time it folds to Russ...last player to act, and obviously in the tank. "God man...you have Aces with the ace of spades don't you? Ugh what did I do this to myself?" He tanks some more and I just remember staring down at the board..."the pots way too big, I have to call you" he said as he flipped up the King of spades and put six yellow chips in the pot. I quickly showed him the ace of spades (so as to not even put it into anyone's head that I would slowroll) and then showed my King of diamonds along with it. I remember glancing at people to see what kind of reaction I'd get for playing AK so fast, and a couple players did have some puzzled looks on their faces. Turns out I think the way I played the hand may have helped me get paid off on those two flopped boats (Aces full of eights and Queens full of Jacks) later on in that session because everyone put me on a whiffed AK after that hand...

So yeah, after the hand, people were like "oh wow, I swore you had aces" and "man, I think you sucked out on Russ, I'm pretty sure he had Kings." "No---...yeah, I was pretty lucky to get there" was my response...

Now, first rule of live poker should be, do not talk about poker with your table mates. Talking about ranges of hands, what you put people on, how long you've been playing, etc. should be completely out of your table talk vocabulary. Talk about the Giants, talk about women, talk about goofy poker shit like your favorite hand or what your biggest pot won was, but leave the strat discussion for blogs and forums. I almost violated that rule and told everyone at the table that Russ did not have a pair of Kings with the King of spades because Russ is much too good of a player not to cap pre-flop and then not put a raise anywhere after the flop with Kings. It was pretty obvious to me that he had something like A:x:K:s: or KQ...something like that. I don't like the way he played AK to be honest, but I've seen players like him at Cap, and he must've figured he was either a flip (AK vs my QQ-JJ) or a complete dog (AK vs my AA-KK) and decided to see a flop before putting in anymore bets. After the flop he had a couple backdoor draws and couple overs to the board, plus he was last to act, so peeling a flop isn't bad at all. The turn gave him a couple overs and a K-high flush draw, so of course he's coming along, and he simply got unlucky by rivering the 2nd nuts vs. the nuts. So yeah...that's my read of the hand...whaddya think? He definitely didn't have KK, and thankfully, I didn't let any of my opponents know that they were wrong nor did I let them in on the fact that my deductive reasoning skills at poker are pretty good.

You're there to win money, not to show everyone how good you can "read people." DN gets paid to be that guy on tv, you don't. That's enough lecturing from me, be on the lookout for more big hands where I luckbox my way to win ;-)