Argh - Foiled By Them Pesky Bonuses

Well, I feel a bit stupid.

UltimateBet won’t let me withdraw until I play 2500 raked hands, and I’ve only played 1400.  I am poor at cash game play, as I revert to tournament play too easily.

As an example, NL10 6 max table, a tilty aggressive player(TAP) raises UTG for $0.80, gets a call, and I re-raise to $2 from the button with AQo.  TAP has previously shown he will go all-in with A9o, and just rebought with $10 so I feel I have a good expectation I have the strongest hand if he shoves (I wouldn’t normally btw, depends on villains MO), except the second player who called from the CO worries me. 

Call. Call.

Pot is now $6.30, and flop comes 4 4 8 rainbow, bad flop for A Q, but as long as neither player has a pair, I may well still be strongest.  TAP checks, the CO checks, so I take a free card before evaluating, in retrospect I should have continuation bet it as it’s a decent flop for a miss.  Turn is another 8 offering a backdoor flush draw to anyone with two clubs.  Not me.

UTG goes all-in for $8.31 or so.  Now let me explain before I expose this horrible play…. As far as I can see, the 8 is a blank.  With such a decent pot.  This is absolutely typical for the TAP villain, does he have a pair? A 8 is a possibility, and I am discounting pairs… why? Because the villains MO is to shove them hard preflop and gamble.  His play does not fit his method of playing pairs.  So I am down to A 8, and maybe a very tilted A 4, or a complete airball semi-bluff on the flush draw.  2 hands vs a pot he will be desperate to win to break even on his original bust .. I really figure it for a bluff.

CO folds and I call with 2 pair and A kicker, and he shows down A6 for a split pot.

My problem is.. I think it was a stupid call.. but for the reasons made above, I made it.. but calling $8.31 into a $14.61 pot, I need to be 55% certain of winning or splitting the pot.. and I confess, it was probably 50%/50%.  He gave me a lot of verbal for the call, but I also felt he shoved OOP wasn’t genius either.

I hate it when I don’t know if I made the right decision, but I have nasty suspicions I'm still a total donkey.