Hand 2, APC Satellite

After the big pot, I go card dead. For several rounds I don't play a
hand. I'm getting ... nothing.

My "M" (the number of orbits I can survive without betting) has
dropped down to about 9. Most of the table is sitting, more or less,
where I am. Blinds are 150/300 with an ante of 25. I'm dealt 5h 6h
on the small blind. There's a single raise from an early position,
and a call from the button. The pot has 1850 in it, it's 450 for me
to call. Harrington goes out of his way to stress that you shouldn't
be playing small (or even medium) suited connectors in positions like
this, but it makes sense to do so here ... I'm getting almost
four-to-one and although I'm out of position, if I do hit, the odds,
and especially the implied odds, are huge.

The big blind, protecting a smaller stack, folds.

The flop is 4h 7h Js.

This is a position I've read a LOT about. I have an open straight
flush draw -- my hand is statistically favorable to any hand that is
not trips.

Since I'm first to act, I have two choices, I can make a play at the
pot right this second, probably with an all-in, or I can check-raise
all-in. Considering all the stacks are more or less in the same spot,
I could use a bit more fire power from getting a few more callers ...
Anyone who calls early, I can squeeze with a big bet, everyone else
can fold.

Yes, I'll lose to trips, but the early position isn't sitting on trip
Jacks -- he's missed a large Ace. And if he's hit AJ, well, I've got
a statistically better hand than his anyway.

I check. The early position checks (and the way he's been playing,
that means he has a big Ace and has missed). The button makes a
half-pot sized bet of 900.

Just calling here and playing for the draws is a mistake, I think.
Assuming he's not tripped up, or not playing two bigger hearts, I'm
statistically over him. He's Italian, and all the Italians here have
been playing fairly aggressively. This feels like a play at the pot
to me, but I don't care, by playing all-in I may take the pot right
now (I definitely will if he doesn't have any kind of hand) and it
eliminates my little problem of being in early position.

I push all-in.

The early player immediately folds. The button, the guy who made the
bet at the pot, pauses. He thinks and thinks and thinks.

So he wasn't bluffing. He has a hand, but not a good one, something
marginal. JT, something like that.

He keeps thinking. He thinks there's a good chance I'm bluffing and
he feels committed to the pot now. He calls.

7s 8s.

Very gutsy. So yeah, he's got the best of it right now, but I'm a
favorite. His 7's mean I have to do better than just pair a single
card and his 8 has taken away one of my straight outs, but I'm over
him. A quick look at a poker odds calculator says that I'm 52/48 ...
Combine this with the fact that he thought for a LONG time, and well
could have folded the hand, I'm a winner.

It's a semi-bluff, to be sure, but it's the right play -- especially
at this stack size. I could have pushed in first, and may well have
been more likely to win the hand straight out, but playing for either
the free card, or a bet behind me and then raising, feels like the
right thing.

I thought about this one a lot immediately after it happened, and
although I still thought it was okay, didn't like it as much. Now I
like it a LOT better. This definitely feels like the right play.

Dr. Bob or Karpov, feel free to comment.