He Should Have Barreled
Found this sort of interesting hand while randomly perusing the database. I don’t know for sure that I would have folded to a turn barrel, but I think Villain definitely ought to bet, and if I know that he isn’t betting this, then folding 88h on the turn is easy:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $10 BB (6 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerSavvyPlus.com
Hero ($1411.25)
CO ($2202)
Button ($1577)
SB ($1606)
BB ($1101.25)
UTG ($1112)
Preflop: Hero is MP with 8d, 8h.
1 fold, Hero raises to $35, 1 fold, Button raises to $120, 2 folds, Hero calls $85.
Flop: ($255) 7h, 3h, Ah (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $160, Hero calls $160.
Turn: ($575) Ts (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks.
River: ($575) 3d (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks.
Final Pot: $575
Results in white below:
Hero has 8d 8h (two pair, eights and threes).
Button has 9c 8c (one pair, threes).
Outcome: Hero wins $575.
The only reason not to barrel a draw this good is fear of getting blown off of it or that I just won’t fold very often. The former shouldn’t be a big concern, as I’m unlikely to raise many hands worse than a flush. Sets are potentially good check-raising hands for me, but the pre-flop action makes them unlikely. As for whether I’ll fold, he can’t know for sure, so he needs to have a range for putting pressure on hands like the one I have. He shouldn’t be 3-betting a lot of Kxo or Qxo, so he won’t often have a big flush draw. That makes an open-ender, even without a heart, one of his highest-equity bluffing hands and a mandatory bet.
EPT Madrid River Bluff-Call
There’s a full trip report in the works, but for now, here’s my favorite hand that I played in the EPT Madrid main event:
Blinds are 150/300/25. The UTG is a very aggressive young Scandinavian with a huge stack. He opens to 750, and I call in the CO with 66 and 45K in my stack. Action folds to the BB, who calls. This is no surprise, as his VP$IP is about 50%.
The flop comes 732r. UTG bets about half the pot, I call, and the BB overcalls. Fish though he is, I don’t think he has many 2′s or 3′s in his range. I did once see him peel the flop with AQ unimproved, so he could just have overs, but I thought there was a good chance he had a 7.
The turn was a 9, and my opponents checked to me. There was nothing for me to do but check behind. The BB wasn’t the sort of guy you try to bluff off of a decent pair, so I had pretty much given up after his flop call. As this hand will demonstrate, though, you should always be paying attention and considering your options, even when you think the result is a foregone conclusion.
The river brought an A and completed a potential backdoor flush draw. The BB checked, UTG bet about half the pot, and suddenly I saw an exciting opportunity. I thought that UTG would bluff all of his air on this river, and that while he would also value bet his Aces, he was a lot more likely to have random suited connectors and broadway cards than to have random Ax.
The catch, of course, was that I thought there was a good chance BB had me beat. Station that he was, though, I still didn’t think he would overcall an Ace river with just a pair of 7′s. That would be bad even for him. So I called without too much thought, wanting to project confidence to the BB, who did in fact fold.
UTG showed QT, and I won the pot. I watched BB closely for a reaction that might indicate he’d folded the winner, but I got nothing one way or the other. I like to think that he did, though. Ever since reading Doyle Brunson’s famous story about calling the river with J-high in a 3-way pot to scare out the best hand and beat the third player’s busted straight draw, I’ve wanted to pull off a play like that. This wasn’t nearly as cool, but I was pretty excited about it nonetheless.
Gray Friday
My current 2+2 Magazine article, Gray Friday, is one of the most personal I’ve published. It’s about what was going through my head around the time of the online poker indictments and by extension a reflection on my relationship to online poker in general:
It still seems surreal to me, so many years later, that I can make any living, let alone such an extravagant one, clicking buttons on a computer screen. What purpose does this serve? Who is helped by my facility with hand reading, range analysis, and turn overbetting? Would the world, or even any person other than myself, be any worse off if I were no longer able to ply my “trade”? We may be about to find out.
The whole thing has always felt too good to be true, and now I feel like I am waking up from a dream. Something about this seems right and proper, in a cosmic sense, like someone has finally realized I’ve been getting away with something for too long.
How to Float a Good Player
Dipping into the archives to bring you some poker content…
Villain and I were starting a game. He’s pretty solid and not someone I’d ordinarily go out of my way to play heads up, especially not at 2/4 where there’s easier competition available.
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $4 BB (2 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerSavvyPlus.com
Hero ($402)
BB ($400)
Preflop: Hero is Button with Qd, Kd.
Hero raises to $12, BB raises to $44, Hero calls $32.
Flop: ($88) 5s, 2h, Jd (2 players)
BB bets $52, Hero calls $52.
Turn: ($192) Td (2 players)
BB bets $162, Hero raises to $306, BB folds.
Final Pot: $660
Results in white below:
No showdown. Hero wins $660.
The key to floating successfully against a good player is having a lot of turn cards that improve your hand (or that you’ll be comfortable continuing on, anyway). I happen to get a particularly good one, but here that could be any A, K, Q, T, 9, or diamond.
I specify “against a good player”, because it’s much easier against someone who will just bet the flop and then give up if he has nothing. In those cases it doesn’t matter terribly much what you have, but against a good player who will fire second barrels with a good frequency, you need to have a hand that plays well on a lot of turns.