Legend

Last night I made the sweetest $15 I've ever earned.

I was sitting at the most competitive $1-$1-$2 table I've been at in Colma. Every hand was being raised and raised large. In the first orbit, I saw two pots that had topped $100 before the flop was dealt.

More impressive than the dollars being flung around were the players doing the slinging. This was a serious bunch of folks who seemed to be playing way below their level.

I was looking forward to seeing how I'd do against this tough group (mistake #1) but I was folding every hand. I picked up 7-2 four separate times during the first 30 hands. The other 26 hands were not much more remarkable. As a result, my table image was squeaky tight.

At the beginning of the 4th orbit, I'm in the small blind when an aggressive player with $600 in chips raises to $15 from middle position.

It's folded around to me and I look down to see J♥3♣. Now this hand is a stinker. In fact, according to one dataset the expected value of this hand is in the bottom 10% of all possible starting hands.

But here's the thing. The small blind is an excellent place from which to make a huge pre-flop bluff. Since you are first to act in all subsequent rounds, your terrible position lends credence to you having a real hand.

I read about this move in Sklansky & Miller's "No Limit Hold'Em: Theory & Practice." And the specific hand they mention as being a good hand for this maneuver is J-3. You make the big bluff with your worst hand so as not to "waste" a hand you actually stand a chance to improve with on the flop.

Of course, they also recommend doing it against an unraised pot with several limpers, not against one player who bet 7.5x the big blind (mistake #2). I kinda forgot that part.

But this is, in general, a good move for me to pull off once in awhile. I'm a tight player so a pre-flop bluff is highly unexpected. Also, my opponent was playing a lot of hands aggressively and I didn't give his $15 raise that much credit.

I announce raise and throw in two black chips for a total bet of $40 making it $25 more to the raiser. And he starts thinking. And thinking.

He asks me how much I have left and I tell him $120. Then, he starts counting out chips.

At this point, I'm hoping he's gonna put me all-in so at least I can fold. What the hell am I gonna do if he just calls and I've got to play an $80 pot with Jack-poopy-three.

It's also become evident that the guy has a real hand. A-Q or a high pocket pair. The only hands I can rule out are AK, KK or AA figuring that he certainly would have called with those.

Finally, after a lifetime, he says "Forget it" and folds his hand. Before he does, he flips his cards to show Q♥Q♣. I was over an 8-to-1 dog against him.

The table is amazed that he'd fold his queens, the 3rd best possible starting hand. He figured there's no way I'd make that raise with anything but AA or KK.

And I'm dying to show my hand. If I'd known that I was gonna switch tables an hour later to find an easier game, I probably would have. But there's no value in giving away information like this.

But I stack my $15 profit and briefly consider myself a legend of small stakes poker.