Bluffing on PokerStars

So I decided to play a $2.75 buy-in tournament today. It had a guaranteed prize pool of $10,000, and I'd been running pretty well lately. I didn't cash (I finished about 1,200th of 5,000), but I did make one of the best plays of my poker career just a few hands before busting out.

We were at $150/$300 blinds, with $25 antes. I had just under $8,900 in chips, about average at that point. In late position, I look down to 6-6. One person, tam2664, had limped in behind me, with five others folding. I made it $1,000 to go with my pocket pair from the button, and A.Do.1981, sitting two seats to my left in the big blind, called, as did tam2664.

We went to the flop, which came up 8h-9s-3h. Not a great flop for a pair of sixes, for sure. A.Do.1981 led out by limping again. tam2664 called, and after some thinking, I just called as well. This wasn't a good spot to raise in, as both players would have overvalued flush or straight draws and folded hands I could beat in the long run (like A-3, which I figured one of these players had).

The turn was the Jd, for a 8h-9s-3h-Jd board that looked FAR from appealing. I was checked to, and thought about what I'd been representing so far. I thought the best hand I could possibly give off was Ah-10h, which was semi-reasonable with my betting pattern. Therefore, I made a $1,500 stab at the pot hoping to scare off anyone that may have had A-3 or A-8. A.Do.1981 called, however, and while tam2664 folded, I was kicking myself for wasting $1,500 on the hand when I could have seen a free card.

However, the river was a beautiful 10c, for a 8h-9s-3h-Jd-10c board. Any flush draw was dead, and I figured another overcard wouldn't be pleasant to my fellow player, who now had several more hands to worry about being second-best to. He checked, and I decided to shove my remaining $6,000 in. My reasoning was that he had to have a made hand of SOME sort on the turn, and the odds of one of the cards being a 7 or a queen were pretty low. I had him covered by a little under $2,000, so it in turn put him all-in. He went into the tank for about twenty seconds, and ultimately laid his hand down in defeat.

Happily, I scooped up the pot, and while I'm usually not much for showing cards, I showed the 6-6 and typed, "THAT, ladies and gents, is a bluff!" I was really pleased with how I played the hand, and how I was able to take down a very nice pot on a stone bluff on the end. Unfortunately, all did not end well for me. Five hands later, my Q-10 was toast when I went all-in after a Q-10-X flop and saw my opponent had 10-10. There was no way out of it, and it prevented me from cashing following one of the better hands I've ever played. Still, it's a nice story to tell.