So I played in this WPT (World Poker Tour) event in Borgata yesterday. I was running good catching a flush and getting some value from the guy. He got crippled after that hand. I took a few nice pots further, building up my stack to about $55K (from the initial $20K).

The blinds were 600-1200 (with 200 antes) when I get dealt QQ on the button. UTG min raises to $3000, a maniac reraises him to $8000, I reraise to $20K (40% of my stack, so I’m pot committed), Big Blind goes all-in, but he’s short stacked and I cover him, so I’m not worrying too much. The original UTG raiser, who got more chips than me, goes all-in too.

Here I made a fatal mistake, because I didn’t stop and think. He got a pretty strong message from me when I 3x his raise and he still thinks that what he has is better than mine by pushing all-in, knowing full-well that, with 40% of my stack in I’m likely to call. Here I should have paused. But the thought in my head was: “You reraise me, motherfucker?! I have Queens!!” Obviously, well, everything obvious only post-factum, he wanted me to call. Which I did, and walked into a major buzzsaw: my QQ vs BB’s KK vs UTG’s AA.

But the hand that gave me the greatest pleasure was against that maniac. He basically raised every pot, no matter his position. I called one of his raises with 66. The flop comes AA2. He bets half a pot, I pause a little for some posturing, and raise him, indicating an Ace. He thinks and folds. It’s the greatest feeling when your play back at a bully succeeds, even if you had to semi-bluff. I think my sixes were good, though, even if he called.