Royal online poker club

A great example of fancy play syndrome

A great example of fancy play syndrome occurred against a friend who constantly tries to outplay me. Someone min-raised pre-flop, he called on the button and I called in the big blind with J-10. I had the shortest stack with around 30BBs. The flop came J-J-9. I decided to lead out for 4BBs. The initial raiser called. My friend tanked for a while and called. The turn was the 4. I checked, planning to check-call. I check primarily because I knew my friend would assume I had a weak made hand any would try to outplay me. So, I checked, the initial raiser checked, and my friend bet 2/3 pot, which was about 12BBs. I thought about pushing but realized that both players would probably only call if I was beat. Calling would only leave me with around 15BBs, which would look fishy, but my friend could put me on a 9 or a weak jack and think he could force me off of it by pushing the river. The initial raiser folded and the river was a 9. The 9 was actually a bad card for me, as it would almost certainly shut my opponent down from bluffing, as a jack or nine was most likely in my hand. I checked, hoping my opponent would push. He wizened up and checked behind with his K-Q and I won a nice pot.

Some players try to represent monster hands

Some players try to represent monster hands once the stacks get very deep, which sometimes works out pretty poorly. Another hand against the same friend came up in a high-stakes cash game. I raised from second position with K-K and he re-raised to around 10BBs out of our 200BB stacks. I re-raised to 30BBs, as I had no problem getting all the money in against him. He just called and it came J-J-10. I bet 40BBs and my opponent instantly went all-in. Interestingly enough, the fact that I had K-K doesn’t really matter, as I would probably call this push here with my entire four-betting range, as I will always have at least overcards and a gutshot. I called and he had 9-3. He hit his spade and I lost an $8,000 pot.