Donkey, Donkey, Who's Got the Donkey?

Last night while playing at Binions (where the $1/$2 games can sometimes play more like $5/$10 games since there is no max buy-in) the following hand came up:

I was in the big blind with K 5 of clubs. The pot was unraised with about six other callers. The flop came K 9 6 with two clubs. The small blind bet out $15 and I smooth called behind. (At this point my hand is not worsened by more callers behind me so I am trying to build a pot rather than isolate against a hand that is probably ahead of mine at the moment.) Unfortunately, no one else called and the turn came off a 4 of diamonds. The SB again bet out, this time $50. At this point, I was fairly certain, based on my observations of the player thus far, that he had a king with a better kicker. The obvious play at this point would be to flat call with my hand and hope that a club or a five came off on the river. But there is a better play, in my opinion, that has a lot of upside and very little downside.

Here's what I did: Instead of flat calling the $50, I raised to $120. This raise accomplishes three great things: First, by raising into a board like that, it is very hard for the bettor to put me on anything less than two pair. This means that against a tight aggressive player (which this guy appeared to be), I have instant fold equity. I would imagine that K 10 and possibly even K J will be folding to that sort of raise. Second, if he doesn't fold, it is extremely difficult for him to bet back into me on the river, so I am most likely going to be able to check behind him if I don't hit my re-draw. This is important because had I simply checked behing him, and had the flush draw not appeared, he would very likely have bet back into me on the river. And at that point, depending on what he bet, I might have been getting enough pot odds to make it necessary to call with naked top pair, even if I suspected that my kicker wasn't good. Lastly, and most importantly, raising on the turn set me up for a bigger payoff if I did hit my re-draw. As it was, he did call my raise on the turn, I hit my flush on the river, he checked, I bet $140 for value and made it so that he was almost pot committed to calling me based on the size of the pot. He did and I got paid off. Had I simply smooth called his bet on the turn, he would certainly have noticed the flush possibility on the river, would have checked into me, and I could probably have only squeezed another $60 or so out of him, because I would have defined my hand so clearly by calling two streets that he would have a hard time putting me on a hand that did not beat him.

Ironically, after the hand was over, I got a little bit of trash talk from some other players at the table about how badly I had played the hand. They acknowledged that I had flopped a monster, but couldn't understand why I would raise on the turn when I was (by that time) not a favorite to catch my re-draw. Had they considered the above factors, perhaps they would have thought differently. Fortunately, I don't mind being considered a donkey. It's my favorite table image of all.

Until next time...HEE HAW!