Little Update

After several bad days, I finally have a good run again. I recently participated in a heads up challenge where I had to beat 3 players to win 8 times my money. The first time I put $400 on myself but lost in the second round. The second time I put $300 on myself and won all three so I got a $2100 profit but tipped the dealer $150. So far my heads up results this year is 7 wins, 3 losses.

Recently I played a hand in a cash game. Many questioned how I made the river call so let me explain it here. It may have looked like a fish call at the time, but I have every explanation in my analysis to justify my call.

I was in the hijack position and I looked down and saw AsJs

so I raised it to 5x. (yes our regular game 5x is a standard open). Button calls and a 2 others called. Flop came 3h4h4s

 It was checked to me and for some reason I decided not to cbet this flop. I checked and button lead out with a pretty big bet, about 15 bbs. (3/4 of the pot) Everyone else folded, I decided to just call. This guy called my preflop raise of 5bbs, unlikely he called me with a 4. Maybe A4, 45, but other 4s seem unlikely. If he hit the 3, I have 2 overs and maybe redraws on the turn. If he had a flush draw or straight draw, I am still ahead. He may have an overpair like 6s, 7s, even 10s, but I called. Turn was 9c

The 9 looks like a blank, doesn't complete any draws, but it doesn't improve my hand either, so I checked. He checked back. I now can safely eliminate 4 as a possible hand. 3 maybe, 6s-8s looks possible, 10s or better unlikely, 9s maybe check the house on the turn. Flush draw straight draw looks possible. Then river comes Ts

To me another blank unless he had 10s, but I already determined it was unlikely he had that hand. I was thinking maybe I can lead out and get a 3 to fold. Maybe even 6s-8s. If he given up on the draw he will fold them to me. And in case he was drawing with AhQh or AhKh, I can push him off the hand. So I bet out about 60% of the pot with 4 times that left in my stack. After a few seconds he asked me how much I had and shoved all in. What do I do? I don't think he has the 4. I don't think he would do that with 6s-8s. Only possible hand was nines full or busted draw. I studied his posture, his demeanour and speech. Didn't look super strong. Now my only concern was did he have AQh or AKh. I decided that if he had those hands he mostly would have reraised preflop. AJ should be good enough. I called and to everyone's amazement I showed the AJ and it was a good call. He showed Q6h. A reraise on the river looks really strong, but the story didn't make sense unless it was the 9s. I went with my read and won a hand I shouldn't have. 

Lately I am also preparing for a one day course I am conducting in two weeks time. I really enjoy coaching people in poker. I get to improve as I prepare the materials myself. I should go to bed soon. I rare day I can sleep before 4am. Good night.