Mrs. Fish

My dear and patient wife wants to play poker. Tonight. On my Party Poker account. So, I promised I'd let her play a $5 SnG. I further promised wouldn't make any comments unless she asks, which she won't. My dear and patient wife doesn't know what she's doing. It is going to KILL me to sit there and hold my tongue. All in the name of marital harmony. I think I'll probably keep a running diary of the event.

Last night, she watched over my shoulder as I played a $10 SnG, something she doesn't do very often (read: never). She had many questions and I was happy for the interest. I tried to explain to her, best I could, why I was making certain decisions. She was mostly concerned with my folding of what she perceived as "quality" hands. A couple times, she wondered why I didn't call bets. I told her I thought I was beat. And I was, thankfully. Even more thankfully, I won the thing, so I didn't come off a complete jackass, explaining all my sound strategy and bombing out in 7th.

As mentioned in the previous post, I like to be aggressive late in tourneys. In particular, on the bubble. A lot of players will just keep folding and hope for someone to get knocked out. I try to use that to my advantage. Now, this is far from a hard and fast rule. It depends on the other players and the chip counts. But last night, both were favorable.

I was just abusing the player to my left. I had pulled off a couple steals earlier, so pressed my luck when we got down to four. With the blinds at 100/200, I raised him 3 straight times from the SB. Only once did he call and immediately folded to my flop bet (if memory serves, my best hand of the 3 was K9o). After the third time, I turned to my dear and patient wife and said, "He's not going to put up with that any longer."

So, naturally, my next hand in the SB is two black aces. I may very well have this guy tilted, so I raise it 4x the BB. He uses his time bank (I'm imagining him with steam coming out of his ears) and finally calls. Flop is ragged with two spades. I put him all in and he calls with 62 of spades. Turn is a spade (!!$#&##!). River is a spade (YES!!!!!!!). Too funny.

Now for a conundrum. I'm pretty sure I did the right thing, but did I do the RIGHT thing?

Same tourney, 3-handed. I get those skanky Hilton sisters in the BB. Button, who is short stack, goes all in. SB calls. I call. So there's no side pot. I get a set of Qs on the flop and it's checked to me. Dutifully, with poker etiquette (is there really such a thing?) in mind, I check. We, in fact, check it all the way down.

Would it have been wrong (or, at least, frowned upon) if I bet there? I understand there's no side pot to bet at, and if I induce a fold, it's one less chance to knock out a player. But I'm trying to win this thing. I have a 3-1 chip lead after taking down the pot. I could have won it right there if the other player catches something on the board. My hand is pretty well hidden. I'm more than reasonably sure I'm going to knock out the button with my set of Qs.

It's been bugging me. I want to bet there. Would I be wrong? Did I blow my chance to get chips by not raising pre-flop and it is now my honor to check it down?

Any and all viewpoints will be considered.

::Update::

Thank you folks for your responses. Of course, you are all correct. The lesson here, as always, is I'm an idiot.

But, at the risk of furthering my public humiliation, I want to explain where I got this notion, where my betting would be seen as a faux pas of sorts. The idea--or, more precisely, what I THOUGHT was the idea--was in my head from an old 2+2 thread. That thread pointed to an online article by Daniel Negreanu.

It was interesting to me when I read it (a couple months back, I guess), because it had not occurred to me previously.

Of course, the part I failed to grasp was the BLUFFING part (not to mention the multi-table issue). To add insult to injury, there's a companion article that SPECIFICALLY addresses my situation the other night (#5).

Thanks, again to those who responded.