Nick is a Heater

Ahem – if I could start with a little poetry ‘I can think of nothing sweeter…than to be a massive bloody heater’. Thanks; I was up all night on that one. Actually I’ve been up all night quite a bit recently – winning cold hard cash. Because I, my friends, am on that far too rare a phenomenon; a heater. Everyone has them just the same as everyone has brutal downswings but we forget they exist because we play so long between them and we fail to enjoy them enough. I’m trying to enjoy every day; my sleep cycle is paying the price.

It’s not that I’m doing much differently I’m just luck boxing my way to supreme glory – sit down, play, win …its becoming routine. Confidence, that elusive mistress, only helps because sitting down at the virtual felt expecting to win is a pretty good start. The danger is that I’m becoming over confident. The beast is well and truly out of the cage when I play at the moment and I’m reraising way to lightly and bluffing far too much.

Playing a typical 4 table of Holdem session a few days ago I was a couple of hours in and winning, you remember the heater thing. I’d been attacking a player I had position on on two tables. He wasn’t a poor player just predictable and really unlikely to make a move against me and was folding a bit too much, of course every man has their breaking point.

For the hand in question we had effective stacks of about 130 big blinds. He opened from the cut off for a standard raise and I 3 bet him with 9 hearts 8 hearts. He called and I put him on a mid strength hand, two decent broadway cards or a pocket pair. The flop came ten spades, 8 clubs, 3 diamonds and he checked to me. I made a pretty standard continuation bet of two thirds the pot and he called. At this point I know he has to have a hand but probably isn’t super strong; he’s the kind of player who goes into check call mode when they have a hand they think is good but don’t want to play a big pot with. It’s not a great statergy unless you’re going to call down very light because once people (in this case me) pick up on it they’ll force you to make really big decisions by firing on multiple streets.

The turn brought the 7 of hearts giving me a straight draw to go along with my pair. Almost instantly my villan bet out about two thirds of the pot. This was a weird line for him to take of course with me having the lead in the hand. Often when players do this they’re a little weak because after all I’m supposed to bet. I thought for a while but probably not thoroughly enough – remember the beast is out the cage at this point. I have about a pot size raise left and decide he can’t be that strong and I can get him to fold if he has something like Ace ten or 99 maybe even stronger.

I shove my stack in and wait for him to think then give me the pot. Once my money is in I realise he’s getting just over 2 to 1 on his call which would look really tempting to me if I was facing a bet from a player I knew was being overly aggressive and I had a decent hand. After thinking for an age and timing down long enough to convince me he was folding he calls, which is bad. He also turns over an awful hand for me Jack spades, Jack of clubs having me beaten and taking away two of my outs, which is really bad. I’m shocked he took so long to call – but then I know what I had.

Of course I wouldn’t tell you a story without a happy, unjust ending as the beautiful 6 clubs rolled off to give me my winning straight; what can I tell you I had outs plus I am running like baby Jesus.
On reflection I don’t like either of our play in the hand. I can’t see many benefits to his line – unless on the turn he knew he was ahead and was playing to make me spazz out; however the time he took to decide to call would suggest that wasn’t the case. I also don’t like my semi bluff shove. He obviously had a hand of some strength, I didn’t really have enough chips to make him fold it and the dynamic between us meant he was much more likely to call.
Ahh heater how I love you. I want to walk with you for hours by a sun drenched lake, stare lovingly into your eyes until time stops; you magnificent bitch mother never ever leave me.

Originally published in Poker Player magazine.

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