Do you trust your read?

Live game Friday night, NL with $2/5 blinds. I’m in seat 1, on the button with QJo. Seat 7 is a 25-year old chatty player. Tight and seemed decent. He raised to $20. Two callers, I call, and button calls.

Flop is J-7-3, rainbow. He checks, others check to me, and I bet $60. BB folds, Seat 7 calls fairly quickly, and the others fold. Now we’re heads up.

My read is that he has AJ, AQ or AK, maybe AT. Why? It was mostly instinct – I just sort of felt it. Thinking back to the hand, I guess the reason was his check on the flop, and quick call thinking that I was making a play on the button since everyone checked, hoping to take the pot from me later. I was leaning against AJ, because he likely would have bet that flop in a multi-way pot with a junky flop.

Turn was a [J-7-3]-4. He checked, and I checked behind. This was my first mistake.

River is [J-7-3-4]-K. He bets $150 into a ~$220 pot. I sat back and studied him for a good long while. This was the first time in a long time (since I’ve been playing mostly on-line), that I’ve “stared someone down.” I just relaxed and watched, trying to get a read.

At this point, I was 50/50 on whether he had AQ or AK. This would require a call, since I was getting more than 2 to 1 from the pot of $370. Based on his past play, it could be either AQ or AK, and if he had AQ I thought that he was betting with the thought that he would push me off a jack, or I simply had a draw on the flop with something like T9. His bet was larger that what I would think he would value-bet on the river if he had AK.

I loaded up $150 for the call, set it in front of me, and watched some more for a reaction. He seemed really nervous, and now he was bouncing in his seat and fidgeting with chips. He normally shuffled and fiddled, but this was clearly nervous fiddling. I read this as weakness, and that he didn’t want a call. So I was leaning toward call, maybe 55/45, still very close. Now the turning point for my decision became calling just to see if my read was correct.

So I called. He had AK.

Reflecting on the hand and his reaction, I think he just got really nervous being watched so intently for so long. I didn’t think of that at the time.

While he was stacking his chips, he looked at me and said "Sorry." He meant it -- he was a nice guy. I think there was a bit of guilt in hitting on the river, and that contributed to the nervousness.

I should have raised the river, or just pushed -- I'm almost positive he would have folded, since we both had over $1000 behind. Damn.