Journal of a Poker Pro

By far, my favourite poker show on right now is High stakes poker on GSN. This is one of the biggest pots ever, as far as I know. Close to $600,000 of REAL money in the middle here. Check it out then read some of my comments below.

So sick. I'd like to think if I were Daniel, I could've gotten away from that hand. There are only 3 hands that are check/raising that river, and all of them beat him.
I actually had a hand sort of similar to this occur last month... I'll run you through my thought process.

A pretty regular player in my game raises to $6 preflop from an early positon. I've played a lot with him, and know he's got a good hand to be rasing so early. He gets one caller, and I call on the button with 55. Very standard, and I'm looking to hit another 5 to extract some money.

*** FLOP *** [5c Ah 2h]

Bingo. Exactly what I'm looking for. He is first to act and checks, which right away signals to me that something is wrong. He would usually bet this flop and try to represent an ace. So, he is either scared of that ace, or has hit a huge flop and has three aces. Because of the two hearts on the board, I would think that three aces would bet here and make a flush draw pay, so I make the assumption that he has JJ, QQ or KK. In order to not scare him away, I check also. You might wonder why I didnt bet to protect against the heart draw, and its because he obviously doesnt have it. If he raised with AK, or AQ, he cant have two hearts because the ace of hearts is on the flop. SO i'm safe to check behind here, and hope that he bets his KK or QQ on the turn.

*** TURN *** [5c Ah 2h] [2s]

Beautiful card for me. I now have a full house. He checks to me, and I can't check any longer. I need to put some money in this pot. I bet a very weak $8 into an $18 pot. This is meant to look weak, and also get him to call with KK or QQ because the price is good. But then he does somethign that surpirses me. He puts in a minimum raise. He raises to $16. Now what is he doing? One of two things -- 1) picking up on my weakness and trying to take the pot away from me, OR 2) he has a better full house or possibly quad 2's (unlikely as I dont think he would raise this hand preflop from that position). I just call the bet wearily.

*** RIVER *** [5c Ah 2h 2s] [8d]

This is a meanigless card. If I was winning on the turn, I am still winning now. And my friend pulls a Gus, and checks the river to me. I assume I must have the best hand. He must have KK or QQ, or maybe a very strangely played hand with an ace in it. The pot is about $40, so I bet $30, hoping to get a call. Well, I got more than that. He raises me again. This time to $100. Now I have all the pieces to this puzzle and can put it together. The only hands that checkraise me here are AA, 22 or 88. All have me beat. I have a history witht his opponent -- he knows I'm in korea, and he's korean. We've talked before. So I got into the chat box and tried to elicit some info. Chat went somehting like this after he rasied:

the_main said, "AA?"
LM said, "yea"
the_main said, "will ushow?"
the_main said, "FOR KOREA?"
(he wouldnt answer, but I was sure)
the_main: folds
LM: shows [As Ac] (a full house, Aces full of Deuces)
the_main said, "nh"
LM said, "for Korea"

So basically, I was right, and saved myself a tonne of money where a lot of people go broke. And, oh yeah, I'm better than daniel negreanu.