The Student now knows more than the teacher!

I had a game at my house last night with the usuals. One of the usuals is an old high school friend of mine. The first real game Kevin played was at my house on December 30th 2005. He loved playing and has been playing live home games and online sit & go's too. We would email each other about our online games and he would ask me questions about his play. I would answer him honestly. I really took him into how I play. First off, I'm not a poker pro by any means, but I helped him stop making costly beginner mistakes that I learned the hard way. Kevin has become a very good player in a short time. Matter of fact he has done outstanding online. The emails were called the "Update." Well the updates have been getting shorter, he does not ask how he should have played a hand anymore. He just tells me how he did and the important hands of the game. Kevin by nature is a very competitive. So I knew that sooner or later our games would become a rivalry. A friendly rivalry, but a rivalry just the same. So now I guess I will be getting the Critique’ Last night during the third hand I went all in and got called and lost. Which made me the dealer for the rest of the game. Kevin was knocked out 2 players later. Now granted, he played a lot longer than I did, he still finished 6th. The second game I won and Kevin was 2nd. We have been heads up a lot lately. To date, I have won all of our heads up matches. So I was suprised to get the following email & my response: John, If I use one word to describe your play last it is reckless. The third hand of the first game you go all in with a pair of jacks and three low cards on the board. With Bill in the hand anything could happen. Who knows he could have had pocket queens,kings or aces. So he decided to call and he had a lot of outs. He had a spade draw which gave him 9 outs, he had a seven and a queen which gave him 5 more. He had over a fifty % chance of making his hand between the turn and the river. So you bet your entire stack to protect a pair of jacks on a fairly small pot. That play made no sense at all.Fast forward to to second game, you get a quick start and win some chips early. You then loose some chips, but still have a very good chip stack. You get dealt ace and a jack off suite and you go all-in with the chip leader still to act. The last I knew ace and a jack is a good starting hand, but it is not a premium hand. You get called by Franny with pocket queens. He has you dominated and you need an ace. You catch a miracle running cards to pull out a straight. Again what were you thinking? You then played well the balance of the game and used your big stack to bully the table. How do you think you played last night? Kevin Kevin, Ok, I will let you know what I was thinking. I get the Jacks which are a tricky hand to play. I raise a good amount and get 2 callers. Bill, who plays any two cards, and Franny who I was a little worried about. I watched Franny on the flop and knew it didn't help him. Bill, who knows what he plays? Bill is a calling machine. He's dangerous, he will call until he gives his chips away or catch something and take a boat load of chips off of you. I get a low flop which is what you hope for with Jacks. I was first to act, Normally, I would make about a 3/4 or pot size bet. I knew that would have chased Franny, but I thought Bill would call. I didn't want to give him any more cards. It was the third hand and I never thought he would call an all in that early and risk getting knocked out. I wanted to put maximum pressure on him to fold. That was an all in bet. You calling my play reckless is unfair. It was very caculated. It just didn't work out. About all the outs he had, that was after you saw his cards, if you were sitting where I was you would know that. I guess I should have took a look at the flop and folded?? My read after the flop was 1. I had the best hand. 2. I didn't want him to get anymore cards. I was right on both. Let me ask you this? If you had his cards, saw the flop, would you have called the all in bet? Now you know another spade came, but if you didn't would you have called? That is the reason for my all in. I felt it was the only way I was going to win that hand. I also thought there was a very good chance it was going to work. It didn't, but it should have. Remember one thing, I play to win. If he didn't catch that flush he's crippled and I got a huge chip stack and the rest of you are in big trouble. Ok, fast forword to the second game. I'm The blinds were 200/400 so there is 600 in the pot. I think I had 2500 in chips? That's only 4 rounds before I'm blinded out. I first to act, I have Ace Jack. if I raise 3 times the blind I'm already pot committed. I moved in. Franny did have the queens, and flopped a queen so I was in huge trouble. Catching that 10 for a straight on the river was sweet. Hey, can't I get lucky once in awhile? I've taken so many bad beats I never feel bad about laying one on somebody. I'm done playing everyone's style. I'm playing my style from now on. If you think it's reckless that's fine by me. Since we have been keeping track of our games I've played 22 tournaments and have 7 wins. Not a bad percentage. See you on Saturday. Reckless I guess the rivalry is on....