My best investment ever

I was playing at the Venetian last night. A new player came in, two seats to my right. He was under the gun for his first hand--didn't even have chips yet. Before he looked at his cards, he started asking the dealer how he could get some Advil. Could he get them from the desk? the cocktail waitress? food service, perhaps?

At this point, I have looked down at my cards to find the A-Q of diamonds. Since I know I'm going to be playing this hand, I really don't want to get distracted by becoming involved in this guy's medication issue. But one of the things I always carry in my dorky fanny pack is a pill case. In addition to a couple of prescription things, I keep acetaminophen and ibuprofen with me, because sometimes long hours at the table give me headaches, what with the noises and lights and concentration.

New Guy limps in. I raise to $10. Action is back around to New Guy, who is my only caller. During this time, I give in and offer him some of my ibuprofen, despite how I dislike having such things distract me from concentrating on what's happening in the hand. I plop a couple of the pills on the table for him just as the dealer puts out the flop: K-J-x, with two diamonds.

New Guy says a very sincere "thank you," and adds, "Just for that, I'm going to check, even though I'm ahead."

This gives me pause. It sounds completely honest to me. It's not hard to believe that he came in with a king or a jack, of course, but what he said and how he said it scare me. He would have to know that A-K is easily within my raising range, so he's basically telling me that he can beat that. Of course, for all he knows I could have K-K for the nuts, and I don't think he has that. But I am thinking he likely has two pair or the bottom set, either of which would give him plenty of reason to believe that he's in the lead.

Normally in this spot I would bet. I have position, I was the pre-flop raiser, it has been checked to me, and I have both the nut flush draw and the nut straight draw plus an overcard. That makes a pretty good case for betting, right? But his warning has made me wary. So I check behind.

Before the next card peels off, New Guy says, "In fact, you're so nice I'm going to check this all the way for you." Turn card is a blank. I check, too. True to his word, he checks the river in the dark. It misses me, so I check again.

He shows me K-J for top two pairs.

I don't know exactly how the hand would have played out without the Advil exchange. Perhaps he would have led out with a bet on the flop, which I surely would have at least called. If he checked, I would likely have bet, and either been called or check-raised, giving me a difficult decision. I could have even gone broke with it, if I had decided to fire three bullets at it, or if it went bet-raise-reraise on the flop, to which I might have responded by moving all in. We obviously both had hands that we'd be willing to invest a lot of money in.

But because he decided to be nice by not only checking the flop but honestly warning me of the strength of his hand, all I lost was my initial $10 raise. In other words, a few cents of generic over-the-counter ibuprofen saved me at least the $15 or so that I would ordinarily have bet on the flop, and maybe the entire $150 or so that I had sitting in front of me.

Sometimes it pays to be nice.