So I'm about an hour in to a session of 1/2 No Limit at Caesar's palace. Made 1 bad call and down probably 150-250, but as always, I've added-on to table max ($300), when a young pro looking dude I've seen before sits to my left. He's got headphones on, not talking or having fun, etc.
A hand or two in, young pro raises Pre-Flop in early position to probably $12. He gets 1 mid position caller and it folds through to me, Ad8d in the big blind.
Now this is an easy call thinking the guy is a decent player. A pretty standard raising range from early position from up front including plenty of hands I beat, and if not, ones that I can win a big pot from if I get a nice flop. If this guy was a 65yr old dude, I'd probably just fold because he's likely to be playing AQ+, QQ+ and I'm out of position to him and another player. Anyways, I call.
$37 flop:
8s8h3c
8s8h3c
I think for a bit about how I'm going to make the maximum amount of money in this hand. If I bet out and neither player has anything, they'll just fold. And if I bet out and this pro has AA, he very well might just call and see what develops later on in the hand. So I decide to check-raise.
I check, pro bets $20, the other player folds. I decided to raise to $65 to build up a pot and make it hard for 99-AA to fold. To my delight, he then shoves his entire chip stack of about $280 into my. I obviously call, the board bricks out, and I show my A8 immediately to be nice to the guy, and take down the pot. He pretty obviously has a worse 8 with a hand like 78suited or 89suited or a big pair like AA or KK. Doesn't really matter.
This is a fairly standard hand, but is a good example of what can happen when you put a bit of thought into the best possible way to make the most amount of money out of your strong hands.
-Joe
