Poker?

An anonymous commenter wants poker content... hmmmm... Long ago, this started as a poker blog - it was really so that I didn't have to send my friends a bunch of emails - they could read the blog and comment on the hands as desired. Eventually, I realized that most of my recaps were pretty boring after a while, and that almost every poker question always comes down to "it depends."

Now I play poker daily, and I usually have a good reason for my decisions, so I don't feel the need to post hands here - 80% of them would be bad beat or cold deck stories anyway. Still, today I played a pretty interesting hand, so, for your poker starved enjoyment:

5-10NL, I have $2600.

$20 straddle, and I look down at black 9-9. I make it $80, and get called 4 times, I'll act 3rd out of 5 on the flop.

the flop is: K-8-6 rainbow.

Check-check to me, and I bet $225. Folded around to a loose-aggro player to my immediate right who had been the straddle. We'll call him Laggro. Laggro smooth calls.

turn: 7, making two clubs.

Laggro open shoves. He has me covered. Hmmmm.

This is probably an easy fold (and I eventually folded), and I've lost many a pot by trying to get into 9th level thinking and reason that I must have the best hand, making a hero call and pushing my stack to my opponent when he shows me the nuts, but lets talk about it: Laggro probably has a) hand like KT or K9 b) bottom two pair c) a pair and a straight draw d) complete air

I think he puts me on AceKing. My next question is - does he expect me to call with AK? or fold it? He thinks I'm a tight player... he can't really expect me to call $2300 here with AK - but then again, he knows that I know that he knows that... blah blah blah.. Laggro is a thinking player, and I can certainly apply multi-level thinking to my analysis here, but in the end, I think it's just too thin to call here with the hope that he's just trying to induce a fold.

The good news is that I have outs if I'm trailing, as I've picked up an open ended straight draw. If your advocating a call, would you still be advocating a call if the turn were a deuce instead of a seven?

Perhaps a more interesting question is, if I had AK, would I call here? I'm really not sure...

Now, a few more data points:

1) Laggro has thrown big air balls at other players in similar situations - got called and shown absolutely nothing. So I know he can throw a pure bluff. Then again, I know that he knows that I know this...

2) we played a pot earlier in the day where it was 5-10, 4 people called $10, and he made it $125 from the SB. Knowing that he views me as tight, and having had previous days where he's told me "I'm giving you no action today," I decided to get aggressive with my 88, and made it $425 - leaving me $665 behind. He smooth called me, pushed on the 7-6-2 two heart flop, and showed down Ac6c which was no good.

So. Anonymous Commenters - discuss.

-KD