A reputation is built faster than the case for it

1. I raise to $2
2. middle position fold
3. cutoff fold
4. button fold
5. small blind raise to $7 · ×3.5
6. big blind fold
7. I call $5

The first: K♣J♣ under the gun (UTG), first to act before the flop, and I raise to $2. The small blind re-raises to $7 and I call.

1. small blind bet $11.25 · 75% pot
2. I call $11.25

No pair, an inside straight draw: a queen gives me nine through king. And the king and the jack are live: if either one lands on the board, I have top pair. The board is low and connected, and it suits his range better than mine: after a re-raise from the small blind he has a pair or better, by my estimate, in 58% of his hands, while I have nothing made and my share of the pot here is 31%. He bets $11.25, I call. The price of that call asks me to be right exactly thirty percent of the time: to break even on the spot, I need the pot to come to me nearly one time in three. The small blind re-raises rarely – under eight percent of hands across the field – and against that range, by my estimate, my equity comes out just short of thirty, which is to say right about at the price. The immediate price is not what settles the call anyway: it counts the hand as though it ended right there, and a draw that gets there still gets paid on the later streets. Against what he actually held – two queens – it was twenty percent – but I could not know that, and hindsight is not an argument. The argument is this: of the queens that complete my straight, two were left in the deck rather than four. He was holding the other two. I work out the turn plan right there, before the card: a queen makes my hand the best one against his whole range, a king or a jack gives me top pair – after those, by my estimate, 30% and 42% of his hands beat me – and any other card leaves me behind.

1. small blind bet $42.06 · 112% pot
2. I call $42.06

The card I had been asking for, and the only one in the deck that helps him more than it helps me. I make a straight, nine through king; he makes a set of queens. My share of the pot goes from 31% to 95% on the same estimate: from here I can only lose if the board pairs and one of the nine sets fills up. He bets $42.06, his whole stack, and I call. Against what he actually holds, enumerating the forty-four remaining cards gives me 77.3% – ten cards beat me, the ones that pair the board and give him a full house. The hand was run twice – two separate rivers, half the pot riding on each – and both came blank, so both halves came to me: +$56.81. By EV the hand was worth +$30.19, and the whole gap between those two numbers is about how the last two cards fell, not about how I played it. By that point he had sat with me for three hands and had not seen a single one where I put in so much as a dollar. He was moving all-in against a blank line. To him I was neither careful nor reckless – I was nobody, and he filled that in for himself.

1. I raise to $2
2. middle position raise to $6 · ×3
3. cutoff fold
4. button fold
5. small blind fold
6. big blind call $5
7. I raise to $28 · ×4.7
8. middle position fold
9. big blind call $22

The second big pot works the same way from the other side. Under the gun again, I hold A♠K♦. I raise to $2, a player in middle position (MP) re-raises to $6, the big blind calls, and I raise again to $28. MP folds, the big blind calls, and $62.50 is in the pot.

1. big blind check
2. I check

A miss, and we both check.

1. big blind check
2. I bet $75.70 · 121% pot
3. big blind fold

Top pair, top kicker, and a third heart on the board. I bet $75.70, my whole stack. He folds and I take $58.00. The bet is arguable: almost the only hands that can call it are hands that beat me. But in the seven hands we had spent at a table together, this opponent had seen exactly one where I played. He read that bet off a single hand.