Session 13d

I am looking for my spots and posting blinds. Then I pick up AKos. I raise it to 8 and get one caller from solid guy in the corner. Flop is AK9 and I lead out for ten then he raises me to 30. Huh? Interesting. I go over the possibilities and immediately discard AA or KK. Nines? Maybe but I think far more likely is A9 or another AK. I process the hand and I decide I am at worst chopping so I toss in my stack and say "OK, let's chop it up. We probably have the same hand." The absense of insta-call is music to my ears. He is in the tank now. He is looking back at his cards and really has a tough decision on his hands. I immediately gravitate my read to A9. He really doubts that he can be good but has a tough laydown in front of him and he had already made another really tough laydown with trip Nines a few orbits ago. He starts to move his cards toward the muck and I start to inch mine closer to the middle as well. He asks if I would show him and I apologized profusely and told him that my friends JUST reamed me out for showing cards and that I can't show him. He only has about 40 behind and I can tell the curiosity is just killing him. He draws his cards back a little and I reverse direction and inch mine back toward my stack. He looks at his stack again and then asks again if I would show to which I make a motion towards his stack. He finally reluctantly announces "fold" and mucks his cards while calling my hand exactly. "You're a real solid player and have been showing down quality hands so I can't be good here." I apologized again about not being able to show him and guessed he had A9 and he said no. Then I asked if he had an Ace in his hand figuring maybe he liked AQ but that was wrong too. "K9" he says which explains everything about the hand. I tell him that was a tough laydown.

That gets my stack healthier and I am creeping back to even for the session. Within a couple of orbits I limp in with 8c9c and catch a Flop of QJT two Diamonds. I lead out for a pot sized 10. Decent gal two seats down raises me to 30. Uh oh. Me no likey this situation. Folds around to me so at least I know I am only up against one other person this time. I tank it and just cannot put her on AK in a limped pot. I also don't think she is playing it so aggressively. K9 is haunting me and I cannot dismiss that possibility either. She's definitely not on a Diamond semi-bluff. It MUST be two pair or at worst TT for bottom set but I'm positive it's two pair. I re-raise her to 80 and the table is riveted by the play of the hand. No insta-call so I know I'm good here. I even start speeching about "I am pretty sure we're chopping this one up" to try to sell her on the AK hand just in case she did have K9 and I need her to fold. She asks how much I have left behind and I count out about 60 and change with which I'm insta-calling if she shoves. She has her head in her hands and looks at her cards again. Her body language finally expresses a "screw it" and she puts me all in. I call. Dealer runs the board and a 9 comes off on the Turn. Ugly. River is a blank. I throw out my cards and she can't even process what I have until the dealer tells her I have a Straight. And she then wonders aloud if I got there with the 9 and she has it explained to her that I flopped it. SHIP IT! That hand doubles me up + and gives me over a stack of sugar for the session. The K9 guy was saying that he thought I had AK and I told him that's what she was supposed to think. She even said that she thought I might have the Straight and even says she had top two pair and "outs, a LOT of them." Well, if you mean at most four J's or Q's or runner runner Tens to boat up and the runner runner chop outs then yeah I guess so.

I go into ultra hibernation nit mode and fold everything for a couple orbits then grab a rack to tell the table that I'm leaving soon. I take my free hands and fold AcJc under the gun because I just wanted to get the heck out of there. A bit of a nerve wracking session with some tough decisions for me but my head was clear and making the right reads and the right decisions.

100 + 100 > 312