The idiot end of the straight

Tonight's the next Monday night game, and I'll be attempting to extend/defend my points lead, as well as hopefully take down a nice piece of the prize pool in the process. It's a pretty narrow race right now, but I think I rate to do pretty well, given my results against that field in the past two years.

However, I did lose a $5 freezeout against Dale yesterday evening when I held 95 in the big blind and checked my option. The flop came Q-7-8, and both of us checked. On fourth street, the six came off, giving me a nine-high straight. Not wanting to scare him out, I checked here as well, and Dale checked behind me. The river was a harmless four, and I checked one last time, feeling like he wouldn't let it check all the way down and would fire here. He obliged, but bet a rather large amount. Since I held the second best possible hand, I reraised for all my chips. He called and showed me T9, for the ten-high straight. We had both made our hands simultaneously, and each of us were trapping one another. I don't know how I could've folded the hand though! I could've beaten 44,QQ,77,88,66, any two pair, etc. That is, a lot of hands he would try to slowplay or trap with, or bluff with for that matter.

Regardless, as long as I can avoid getting cold-decked, I think things will go okay. I'll update after the game. Also, the next section of that poker after dark video has been posted if anyone's watching.

Also, I wanted to link an article from the current CardPlayer for discussion, but it seems they only have the second-most recent issue's articles archived online at this point. However, for those that are interested, Todd Brunson's article on making tough folds early in a tournament is worthwhile, especially his discussion of the way ace-king plays in different stages of a tournament. I'll add a link to that article when CardPlayer updates their site. For now, here's a good article on "floating," which is the flat-call on one street with the intention of following up with a bluff on a later one. http://www.cardplayer.com/magazine/article/17270