Here is another hand where knowing the player is more than half the battle. 2-4NL Stars I have a stack of around $422.

I pick up AK utg plus one, utg limps and I decide I will just call because this table is semi-loose and I don't like AK out of position at loose tables. We see the flop 5 way and it comes K96 with two hearts. I lead out for $16 and get called by the button who has a $150 stack. Stack size always tells a lot about a player at a NL table. Usually the guys with under half the full buy-in are the guys who will be paying you off the most. This guy happened to be chasing flushes for any price as I had seen in the past. I also saw him throw out an abnormal sized bet on the river after missing one of his draws and he got called(hense losing his profit and being down to $150).

The turn brings the 3d, a complete brick, I lead out for $40, now sure that he is looking for his flush, he calls. The river is the 9c, now the board shows K9639. Now here I would usually value bet another $40 and maybe hope to get a call from a weak king, but I decide to check, why? Because I have seen him attempt a bluff after missing a draw so the check here might be making me more than rather me betting and him folding his draw. Now of course he could have that 9 but I am 100% sure this guy is not the type to call pot size bets with second pair. The river check, in turn, got exactly what I wanted, he bet $60 and I quickly called. He turned over AJos for no draw, no nothing. My take was he was hopefully looking to bluff me if the heart hit on the river but with my check he figured the 9 was just as good as a heart so he continued with the bluff.

Just another hand where watching hands that you are not in become vital to the ones you do compete in.

Nice hand. I actually think you could have called that against most players. It's tough to put a decent player on a hand in that position. Most players don't limp with any hands that have a 9, unless it's 99. Even with A9 most players would drop a long time ago. That bet will signify a missed draw the majority of the time.

Good point MG. Another thing I thought about after the hand was his river bet. $60 seemed like an appropriate bet for a big hand. But also, his stack size showed that he was playing above his BR and he could have easily been thinking, there is no way this guy will call $60, that is way too much. What he needs to understand is when you are playing above you BR you have to realize that $20 to you could mean $5 to regular at the table. I used to make that same mistake many times when I wold take shots at bigger games, and then I realized that these guys go through $200-400 swings regularly.