Boiling a frog

When I left my last job after more than 23 years, I had a fair number of goodbye conversations, both in person and via email. In one of the email exchanges, a longstanding colleague's congratulations were framed in a way that implied he didn't like working there much anymore; that led me to ask him why he was still at the company. He replied with a question; he asked me if I knew how to boil a frog. I didn't. He explained that you can't boil a frog by putting it in boiling water - it will immediately jump out. What you do is put the frog in warm water, then slowly and imperceptibly raise the temperature of the water until the frog is cooked.

This tactic can be used to remarkably good effect in poker as well. Last night, I boiled a frog on my penultimate hand. I'd been dealt a pair of nines, and a player who acted after me was leading the betting; I just called on the flop and the turn. The river was a nine, giving me a set. I simply checked, knowing my opponent would be putting in a river bet. I then raised him the amount of his river bet, and reraised his reraise by the same amount, at which point he simply called instead of reraising. My set of nines beat his pair of kings, and I won a pot worth $71,400. If I'd led the betting on the river, or raised bigger, I'm fairly sure he wouldn't have put so many chips into the pot.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 54 hands and saw flop:
- 1 out of 8 times while in big blind (12%)
- 3 out of 8 times while in small blind (37%)
- 14 out of 38 times in other positions (36%)
- a total of 18 out of 54 (33%)
Pots won at showdown - 3 of 5 (60%)
Pots won without showdown - 0

delta: $35,700
balance: $2,389,692