Hey RankingHero! This is my entry for the #HandMalta  #BOMpreflop competition.
If you like my post can you click like and help me progress to the next round, thanks!!

italic is the competition text and everything else is my entry :)

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Imagine you’re in Malta playing the 2015 PokerListings Battle of Malta. Lucky you!
You are close to the bubble.
The blinds are 1,000/2,000/200.
Preflop
Everyone folds to the player in middle position

So I'm sitting at this table with these nits up front and this maniac to my right. I'm wondering if I'm ever going to pick up a hand, because it's been a tough job chipping up the past 5 hours but somehow I've managed it.

I mean come on! There's only so many times you can tripple barrel 78s with 8 high on paired turns and get away with it, especially with this absolute maniac on my right.

I swear I've seen him before.

He’s an aggressive Swedish pro, with 136,250 chips, and he raises to 5,000.
Two hands earlier, the villain lost 20% of his stack on a bluff on the river.

Looks Swedish... Sounds Swedish... No way? It can't be??

Viktor Blom?!!! Could this table get any tougher?!

Whatever... I'm just staying out of his way I'm not playing unless I get some kind of...

Monster.

You’re on the button with K♥K♦ and a stack of 130,500.

Heart beating, well for sure it's always doing that... but you know how you can feel it. I can feel it pounding from inside my chest, I swear it's beating so loud they can hear it. Feels like it wants to get out. Don't be stupid they can't hear it it's inside your body. Keep your cool. Damn I just swallowed. OK you're not even in the hand yet. Calm down!

I'm glancing quickly around the table, everyone's either looking at their cards or at Blom's middle position raise. Nice.

... Except that Under the Gun guy, I think he knows I'm strong, he must have been watching me since he folded, the nit. 

So I'm raising here of course this guy is opening 70% of his hands from Middle Position, and he sure don't like folding. My minds going crazy. OK think.

Cut off has just folded... right its on me now.

I've got 130k chips and I'm the smallest of the remaining stacks so mine is the effective stack. We're playing with antes and i've got 65bbs. I can't sit around and wait for two pair or better on the flop anymore. So I'm good to go with this hand. I'm getting it in all day long with KK pre-flop here. Post flop this guy is going to drive me insane I won't have a clue where I am.

So I decide to put in a decent raise. How much though? Well I want to make sure I get value as I know this guy likes to play flops - but ideally, I want to get it in preflop. This guy is just aggro enough to do that. Maybe...

I raise 17k I want to bet a little more than 3x here to make it look a bit bluffy. I know this guy is dying to win some chips back since his last blow up on that river. How could he bluff THAT much? anyway... 17k is charging him to see a flop and he doesn't seem capable of folding preflop anyway, that extra 2k over the 3x might just be enough to rattle his spidey aggro sensors.

I put the raise in then virtually instantly turn to him "you can't have a hand every time, I know you don't have anything." ; Dealer warns me there are still other people in the hand. I apologise. Those nit blinds fold anyway. I look around the table at no one in particular "I know he doesn't have anything. Every time he has raised when it's folded to him the last 4 rounds."

OK. Time to shut up now, you're starting to sound strong. But you're acting wasn't bad! I think they might just be buying that you don't have a clue what you're doing and you actually might be raising because you just think he's weak and have decided to tell him that.

Then I go quite I do my best to look a little worried, I pull at the skin on my throat, that's susposed to be me trying to protect my jugular or something right? I'm sure this guy will know that, and he can't think I'm smart enough to be trying to put an act on for him. I mean I look so stupid, I really do - I'm doing a good job!

(What do you mean I always look stupid!)

Anyway...

He asks me how much I have.

"Umm I have I'm not sure." I do my best to sound timid and a bit unsure of myself, when inside my whole body is yelling - RAISE ME RAISE ME RAISE ME.

I try a little bit of levelling. I'm going to try to make my stack sound strong, because he'll think I'm doing that because I'm weak. "I've got at least 120k, no 130k, yeah I've got a bit over 130k chips".

Yes! He's reaching for chips.

"I raise." He says nonchalently, tunnelling towers of chips into his fingers.

I feel the legs on the back of the chair almost tipping as i nearly fall off the chair with excitement.

"43K. " he calmly says as his chips hit the felt.

Yes!

OK keep this pretence up. Not far to go now.

I tank.

No.. not that tank!

Oh come on you're just being stupid now!!

Yeah ok. close enough.

I look at my cards and I look at him. I say out aloud again "you can't have it every time. You just can't" - I do my best to sound a bit more deflated this time. I reach for my beer. I've been doing a good job of getting myself an image nothing short of the table alcoholic the last 3 hours.

Little do they know what I've been drinking...

HAHAHAHA

I gulp down some beer and sloppily put it back on the table. Why are those tables always just out of reach? Anyway. I blink a slow blink doing my best to look a little dazed.

"Can you show me what you have if I fold?"

He just looks at me, he doesn't say anything, but his eyes say it all. What the hell and who the hell do you think you are talking to? Are you serious? ARE YOU SERIOUS?

All the while my mind is running around trying to figure this out.

So he's made it 43k If I call I'm only going to have 90k behind and that will leave me a pot sized bet on the flop. This guy is so aggressive you can virtually guarantee he's cbetting any flop, and i've got position, when he does that with his stack he can't fold, when I put the rest of my stack in.

He's virtually guaranteed to be 4betting me light. If I put him all in he's only got one move and that's fold, i've just got too much fold equity. Awesome. This has suddenly become super easy! 

"I call" I say doing my best to sound stubborn and a little annoyed at him. Hook line and sinker. I pinch myself (under the table on the top of my hand so no one can see) I've just hustled Blom and there's no way he's getting away from this on the flop.