I did get lucky at one point on one of the deep tables with 45 of diamonds when I reraised a button raiser. The flop came down 2-6-7 rainbow, I bet he called. At this point, I thought his most likely hand was a medium pair of some sort that was an over pair to the board. I was not sure I could get him to fold it. On the turn, another 2 came out and it checked through. This really shows the benefit of playing at deep tables, since most of the time on a 100BB table, my opponent would have had a pretty easy shove on the turn and I would not have gotten to see the river. Thankfully, I did see the river, which was a pleasant 8. I bet $80 into a $120 pot and my opponent paid me off with JJ.
One hand that I thought was played quite poorly by my opponent was the following, replayed from his perspective (i.e. I am the villain in this hand).
Hero raises to 3x the big blind in early position with AsKd at a 6-handed table. The villain calls from the button, along with one player from the blinds. The pot is 9.5bb. The flop comes down KsQs8c. Not too bad, but definitely not great. There are a lot of possible draws on this board, plus if anyone has 88 or KQ, the hero's hand is in terrible shape. BB checks, hero bets 5.5bb into the pot. Villain raises to 18bb, the blind folds and the hero calls. The turn is a 7s, completing the flush and giving the hero top pair and the nut flush draw. He checks. The villain bets 30bb into the ~46bb pot. The hero check-raises all-in for another 50bb...
This hand was poorly played by the hero in several different ways. Raising before the flop is obviously fine. However, the hero's bet sizing on the flop is terrible. If the villain or big blind have a good draw of some sort, this is not nearly big enough and the hero will be in a really awkward spot if any of several different cards come off on the turn. Any spade, ace or 9 complete the obvious draws. One of these cards will come off ~30% of the time on the next card. Also this small bet size might induce bluff raises, which will put the hero in an awkward (although still profitable) spot. A larger problem is if the hero choses to read any raise as a bluff, since he will never be able to fold in that circumstance.
When the hero gets raised on the flop, I think that calling is OK. This is one of those awkward spots in NLHE where there are not really any great options since if you're behind, you're really behind and if you're ahead, you may be only marginally ahead and will be facing two more streets of betting when a large number of scare cards can come off and so making good decisions will be difficult. At this point, I think that calling and waiting for a non-spade, non-straight card would be a reasonable approach to the hand. However, the hero turns a card that seems like it might be good, but is in fact not: the 7s. While this gives the hero an objectively stronger hand (he now has the nut flush draw to go with his top pair top kicker), it is in fact a terrible card. He has gained some equity against sets and KQ, but is now drawing thin against flush draws that got there. Also, he cannot expect hands that are ahead of him to fold. Maaaaybe KQ folds here, but still unlikely.
When the hero CRAI (check-raises all-in), he folds out the straight draw which was drawing really thin anyway and gets called by all better hands. This is the exact opposite of what you want in either a value bet or a bluff since it does not fold out any better hands or get called by any worse hands. Needless to say, the villain called with 88 and made quads on the river.
Remember, Sir Meow says: know why you make a bet. Thinking "I have a good hand!" is not nearly good enough. It is impossible to evaluate the "goodness" of your hand in a vacuum. The strength of your hand always needs to be weighed against the strength of the hands your opponent could logically have in any given situation.
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