Good plays when others think you are a donk

Getting moved in and organized – slowly – will take and post pictures when we unpack our digital camera.

I have been thinking about this issue some recently, and am not sure exactly what to do with it. I have made a number of successful plays recently that I think have been the result of superior analysis and got a great result. These are plays where opponents folded either 1) an inferior hand, or 2) maybe the better hand, but I had a marginal hand and was out-of-position. After both plays, I think my opponents thought I was an easy to read donk. I will give an example.
I am at binions playing in their 8:00 PM tourney ($110 if you get both the rebuy and bonus chips) about a month ago. It is about 45 minutes in so the blinds are 75/150 and I get 99 in EP/MP. I raise to 400 and get one caller in LP. This guy is wild, I have seen him call raises with 75s. He is very aggressive, but also capable of folding. The flop comes out KJ3. This is a nasty flop against this type of opponent as he could have anything. However, odds were against him hitting this flop (as odds are always against someone hitting a flop). Further, he could easily raise if I simply bet into him and could raise anything. I decided to see what he would do so I checked. He bet 500 chips into the 1000 chip pot. I thought for a moment and realized a way to find out if I was ahead. He had a shorter stack than I had, so as I thought for a few seconds I asked “how many chips do you have left”. He counted and had 1375 left. I decided to call the flop and then fire the turn.

The turn was the 2nd best card I could have hoped for – the Ace. I decided to bet what looked like a really suspicious amount. I bet 450 into the pot. I had just asked how many chips he had, and this bet really looked like a suck bet. He thought for a few seconds and groaned for a bit. Then he folded. I was quite happy with my play – even if I simply won with the best hand, it is a tricky hand to play in that spot. What made me happier was what happened next. He started grumbling (soft enough where I could not hear him) to the players next to him (I was 3 seat, he was 7 seat). They seemed to agree. They all must have thought I was a donk either 1) that couldn’t fold an ace on the flop or 2) tried to slowplay aces or AK until the turn but made it look too obvious. Either way, they thought I was a donk.

Some players in this spot try to defend their play so the table does not think they are dumb. Why? I had them right where I wanted them. They thought I was dumb and tight. Because of this, I could continue to play tight/aggro when the blinds were small and build my stack a bit, but then when the blinds got big (which happens quick at binion’s tourneys) I would be in great position to steal several times in a couple rounds before they figure out what is going on. I often see people in this spot wanting other players to think they are good so they defend themselves. That is pointless, you don’t care what they think of you during the tourney, you just want them to think you are good after you win the tourney.