Wednesday Follies

Played a 6-handed turbo and found a maniac to my right who donked off everything on absolute rubbish hands and had the gall to trash talk.  He stated that he’d play any of us heads-up for any buy-in.  I politely suggested a medium stakes cash table and waited for him.  He busted out of the tourney and came for a seat.  .26 hands later I had an extra 68 BB’s.  I wanted to get back to the tourney, so I thanked him, stood up, then managed to squeak into 2nd when my A8 ran into AT when the blinds were at 400 and I had only 3800 left.  All-in all, not a bad start to the day.  

Hope I run into the maniac again – he was fun.

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Hit & Run

I went camping in Tahoe over the weekend and found it to be just what the doctor ordered.  Since my return I’ve been on a bit of a tear.  In both tourneys and cash games.  No anxiety so far either.

I’ve been picking the right game, the right opponents, the right times, and the right stakes.  So all’s good.  But something happened today that raised a question.

The situation is that I sat down to play heads up against a loose-aggressive opponent.  He got the best of me initially as I felt him out to see if he was bluffable or not.   Turned out he wasn’t, and it was expensive (initially) to find that out.  As I figured that out, I only increased the stakes if I had 2 pair or trips.  Top pair was not going to be good enough for me to get a big pot going with him.  I stuck to that, and slowly built my way back to where we were even again.  I decided I was happy folding until I flopped a big hand and I’d let him hang himself since he seemed willing to wager everything on top pair or an over-pair. 

He raises and I call w/ 76.  Flop comes 76T.  I bet modest as he seldom folds to a flop bet.  He re-raises all-in.  If I win this, I’m up…and up big.  He’s shown a tendency to get crazy aggressive with top pair.  He might even have AA or something for all I know, but if he had a bigger hand, he’d have tried to let me hang myself I think.  I’m holding 76.  I call.  He shows QT and doesn’t improve.  I take down a whopper.  I play 3 or 4 more hands, but I’m up…and up bigtime.  So I sit out.  Wish him GG and eventually leave.

So, my dilema is – what’s the etiquette?  Is hit & run ok…it seems to happen to me a lot.  I don’t mind doing it myself, but I worry that an unskilled opponent might avoid playing with me again in the future when I plop down in a heads up match.  I’d prefer that they’re always happy to pay me, and that they don’t avoid me.  What would you do?  How do you feel about the hit & run?

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