In light of my recent article on Creative Bet Sizing, here are two river check-raise overbets I made against the same player. The situations are similar: I have an unlikely monster hand and my opponent has a well-defined strong-but-not-too-strong hand. By “well-defined”, I mean that he probably realizes that I know roughly what he has and specifically that he is very unlikely to have a huge hand. That puts him in a rough spot when I overbet, because he doesn’t know what I will do with the information I have, ie whether I am trying to get value or force him out.
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $20.00 BB (2 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Hero (SB) ($6099)
Button ($4299)
Preflop: Hero is SB with Q
, 5
Button raises to $54, Hero calls $34
Flop: ($108) 5
, 10
, A (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks
Turn: ($108) J (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks
River: ($108) 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $55, Hero raises to $345, 1 fold
Total pot: $218 | Rake: $0.50
Hero: LOL
You may wonder why I say I think he has some kind of hand here. It’s because he’s passed on two good bluffing opportunities on the flop and turn. That tells me has something, and based on how he’d been playing, I expected him to try for thin value with a lot of his range on the river.
Note that I laugh at him when he folds. He may or may not interpret it this way, but my intent was to mock him for trying to get thin value and allowing me to check-raise him huge. This is important to set up his subsequent call:
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $20.00 BB (2 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Hero (SB) ($6158)
Button ($4238.50)
Preflop: Hero is SB with K, 2
Button raises to $54, Hero calls $34
Flop: ($108) 2, 9, A (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $65, Hero raises to $199, Button calls $134
Turn: ($506) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $325, Hero calls $325
River: ($1156) 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $640, Hero raises to $5580 (All-In), Button calls $3020.50 (All-In)
Total pot: $8477 | Rake: $0.50
This one isn’t that much of an overbet I guess, but I would have played it the same if the stacks were twice as deep. He called with AQ but unfortunately quit immediately after getting stacked.