Beware of the small blind

You'll often hear tournament players say that you should never go broke with just one pair. The same statement can be applied to a cash game. I was in a $1/$2 no limit hold 'em game and was dealt 3-5 in the small blind. It was an unraised pot with about 5 limpers so, I threw in the extra dollar as I was pretty sure the big blind was not going to raise. 7 of us saw a flop of A-2s-4s. I just flopped the nuts. Normally, I would just check the nuts and let my opponents hang themselves, but in this situation I chose to lead out and bet. I wanted to thin the field and get any flush draws out. I also knew I would get action from anyone holding an ace. The pot was at $14 so I led out with a $10 bet. One of the early limpers called the bet and after a couple of folds, the pot was raised to $30. My read was that the called had a weak ace and that the raiser had the flush draw (and maybe and ace as well). I went ahead and raised all in for about $250. The initial player called me (he only had about $50 more in his stack) and the other player who had about as much as I did folded.

I was up against A-8 and had my opponent dead to runner runner possibilities. The other player confirmed that he held As-Js and that he knew he was behind and knew I wouldn't make that play without the 3-5. Kudos to him for making a good laydown, but I like when players will get overly committed to a pot with a weak hand. In his position, I would have folded the A-8 preflop. The lesson of this story is to not go broke in an unraised pot. Clearly, I held a trash hand, but when it hit, I knew my hand was good and that my opponents were not good enough to get away from one pair.