Stephen hits a 22-1 shot to beat me on the river

Given the incipient poker-flu symptoms, I decide to keep a lower poker profile than usual and sit down in a modest 5-10 no limit hold'em game just to the right of Stephen. Stephen and I are best friends and Vegas roommates; we try to play at least one session together each trip. Some people hate to play at the same table with their friends. I've always had the opposite attituded--I love to bust my friends and love it when they bust me and generally play extra hard at them. The first hand I play I pick up QQ and raise to 40 under the gun. My friend Stephen, re-raises to 120. Stephen is extremely intelligent and an excellent poker player, but definitely on the snug side. The last time we played together I gave him a thorough tongue-lashing for his passive play and I expect he will show me some friskiness tonight. Still, he must have a pretty good hand here. I call, and we are treated to a fairly disappointing K K 5 flop. I check and Stephen bets 120 and I call. The turn is another 5; we both check. At this point I am fairly sure I am ahead, although there is a chance Stephen is playing A A cautiously. The river is a Jack making the board K K 5 5 J. I check and Stephen bets 200. I'm pretty certain he just spiked his 22-1 shot, so I fold my Queens face-up. Stephen turns over his J J and the whole table is quite impressed with my fold.

Here's the logic: Stephen's range for his re-raise is most likely 10 10 or better or AK, with an outside chance of 9 9 or AQ. AK is unlikely; he probably would have bet the turn. AA KK and now JJ all beat me. With 9 9 or 10 10, there's no real reason to bet the river with the Jack out there. And if he was bluffing, he would follow through on the turn, not the river.

Working this out away from the table is easy; figuring out on the spot and following through with a tough fold when your are getting 3.4-1 odds, rather than making a comfortable call is tough. Sometimes I can do it and sometimes I can't, but I am quite pleased, perhaps more so than I would have been winning the 680 pot!

The table is fairly soft, with one wild guy who is calling with anything. There's a pro from Los Angeles who is a bit frazzled and I mercilessly take advantage of him. He plays 5 or 6 days a week in a similarly sized game and has two kids in private school. After I outplay him 4 times in a row for a thousand or so, he finally makes a creative play and I reluctantly lay down my measly pair of 6s and he takes a modest pot.

I'm up 1300 and Stephen is up as well and we decide to quit and play a satellite together.