[BubbaBoy89]

He was at the table for about 20 hands. He played 2 of those hands, one as the unraised BB where he played it hard with high cards on the flop so its a good chance he hit something there or was trying to chase someone away. The other he limped in and folded to pressure.

I'd been fairly quiet as well, with the only 2 hands he saw having me as the BB and checking the flop... and a raise 3x the BB mid-position where I checked the flop and folded to a bet.

So this is the third hand he played out of the 20 he was at my table for, and was on the button and a min raise. Min raises I see on the button have usually been a weak steal attempt with a medium pair, or a high pair not wanting to chase someone out.

With the BB pretty much needing to make a move, the min raise looked like something I was supposed to call, have the BB getting great odds and move all in, then the button come over the top of me, making me fold while contributing a little extra to the pot. So I put him on a medium pair like he had.

So the time he had been there, no, no raises. And having the table see my ace-5 wouldn't be a proble, because if I won the hand I could sit back with enough chips to wait for a decent hand to play next time, and if I lost the hand my next move would be an all-in when I picked up a hand I wanted to be called with, which I could wait a little for and let my stack dwindle a smidgen, because I would expect to be called and be needing a double up anyways.

If I didn't hit the 5 I may have checked, but most likely not... I felt he was near the hand he had, and I expected a fold to two shows of strength... I couldn't bet less than all-in without crippling my stack so it wasn't like a huge overbet

Would you have made the call with a mid pair? I know it's getting to me more because thats the same way I would have played higher pairs than his, and thats what I was playing my hand as, more than the actual cards I had... He had the chips to wait till about 20 of the 40 dropped out, and had been waiting and tight from the few hands I had seen... I wasn't playing to have my cards beat him, I was playing to have a medium pair fold to a higher pair... I know that my cards would be seen after he folded his hand if he did, but then I would use that new image to my advantage when I played again.

Would you have smooth called? Then the BB would have gone all-in, with at least a call from the button.. so even though it was 400 more to call the min raise, it was really a bet of 1400 total that the BB had...

I could have folded... but I didn't want to encourage future steals by folding to a min raise while the blinds were getting to a level to really hurt me, especially if the BB folded after me, since he wasn't getting as good of odds.. the blinds were just increasing, so it would have left me with an M around 9, so if I didn't get any cards that round, I'd expect another raise from the same guy, if not someone else, on my next round of blinds, which would have hurt me even more if I didn't have cards...

Is that a valid worry/expectation?


Plus I didn't want to push more than my 2500.. any more would have had me needing to go all-in next bet if I was re-raised... so my raise amount was to determine if he had the medium pair I thought, or 10s-Qs, which I would expect a re-raise out of that I would have folded to.

With just the call I figured medium pair, which I figured would fold, or Ace-k/j