my first poker blog post

I played poker on Thanksgiving eve at the Borgata in Atlantic City and had quite a boring session for several hours, followed by some action at the end. Unfortunately, the end-of-session action left me in the negative and it should have ended in the positive. Here's the synopsis of the session:
A new young kid came to my table and he had been there for about 45 minutes. We'll call him the villain (and me the hero). So, during my session I played very ultra-tight. I'm generally a conservative player which is based on my personality and the fact that I don't have tons of cash to burn through in my poker habits. Most of the players at the table pinned me on the tight image I projected and I did not get much action when I bet and raised. I showed down two premium hands over a few hours of play. Back to the hand in question...

The new young kid at my table was aggressive. I saw hands he had shown down within 45 minutes to categorize him as loose aggressive. He has playing a fair amount of hands. One hand in particular that I made a note of, was when he raised from early position with KQ offsuit. Within the period of time this new player was at my table, I actually loosened up my play a bit. I made one huge overbet steal preflop after 6 people limped in (which I did with an AK). There was lots of liberal calling of raises, so I had to raise to 27 dollars preflop after the whole table limped in order to limit the field to one player or to just steal the blinds. The villain saw me make this steal and I think this led him to act the way he acted in the hand with me where he was able to practically stack me. Here goes the hand in question between me and the villain...

I am in the big blind and the villain is in middle-late position, at our full table of players. He raises to $7 preflop as the first person in the hand (this is a $1-2 NL game by the way). All others fold and the action comes back to me in the big blind. I look down at AK off suit. One thing to note: at the start of the hand I had $185 in chips and he had around $130. My thought was to either re-raise to $20 or to just flat call since I'm in the big blind and wait to see what the flop brings. I flat call his raise and the flop comes A-5-8 rainbow. My instinct was that I was ahead of his hand on this flop because I've seen him raise and play against raises with him holding sub-premium hands. I wanted to extract maximum value here because I think that he's either got a lesser ace than I do, or I believe he's got a pocket pair lower like 7's to up Kings. It's rare that he had set on this flop, but possible. The set did not worry me. If he doesn't have an ace here and I lead out from out of position, I do not want him to fold there because I'd make hardly any money on the hand. So, I decide to check-raise him. I check, then he decides to bet out $10. I raise him up to $25 total. He thought for about 20 seconds and he then re-raised me $40 more on top. Given this situation, I definitely do not pin him on a set. A set would flat call and hope to raise later in the hand, in my opinion. So, I'll give him either AQ, AK, pocket 10's - pocket Kings. Given this range, I beat every hand exept for a split pot if he's got AK. I am so sure than I am ahead here, so I re-raise all-in. He thinks for 30 seconds and calls. Then he asks, "do you have an ace?" I say "Yeah." He flips over pocket 9's and says.... "awww, man... I need a 9." I turn over my AK. The turn brings an 8, pairing the board. River cards brings.... yup you guessed it.. the worst possible card... a 9! He caught a full house to beat my two pair.

In the end, my read was right. I was ahead on the flop and I got him to get his stack in with mine on the flop, which would allow me to extract maximum value over time if I keep making the correct read in this situation. It sucked leaving the casino after a 3.5 hour booring session and to end it on a cooler like that. Oh well, that's poker.