This was from the first table of the $300 6-handed NLHE shoot-out. Villain is a very successful tournament player but in my opinion not fundamentally solid. Basically he’s learned how to take advantage of a lot of common weaknesses found in MTT players but is slow to adapt and back off a bit when faced with more balanced opponents who don’t have those same leaks.
As I was on his immediate left and he was trying to play every pot, we clashed a lot throughout the tournament. Early on he folded to my 3- and 4-bets or my c-bets, but eventually he shifted that dynamic by check-raising me twice on pretty dry flops. Both times I suspected that he had nothing but folded anyway as I was near the bottom of my range. If I’d gotten into a pissing contest with him, he may well have won. Instead I tried to keep 3-betting and barreling good ranges, and eventually it paid off.
This may seem like a very straight-forward hand, but I think when people know that they’re up against a very aggressive player who tries to win every pot, they’re tempted to get fancy when they turn the nuts and try to induce bluffs or something. I know I have that temptation, anyway. But that’s rarely the best way to play the nuts, and a line that polarizes your range can easily lead to stubborn call downs from these players.
One final points concerns the sizing. In The Mathematics of Poker, Chen and Ankenman prove that, “When the game is static and one player is clairvoyant, the optimal bet size is to make the pot grow by the same amount on each street, such that on the last street the entire stack has been bet” (p. 241). Although that doesn’t perfectly describe this situation, I think it’s a close enough extrapolation to make this half-pot, half-pot, half-pot sizing ideal:
PokerStars – $300+$20|50/100 Ante 10 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 3 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com
BB: 57.62 BB (VPIP: 39.64, PFR: 19.82, 3Bet Preflop: 6.12, Hands: 112)
BTN: 189.12 BB (VPIP: 44.03, PFR: 35.07, 3Bet Preflop: 16.98, Hands: 138)
Hero (SB): 53.26 BB
3 players post ante of 0.1 BB, Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB
Pre Flop: (pot: 1.8 BB) Hero has Ac Jh
BTN raises to 2 BB, Hero raises to 6 BB, fold, BTN calls 4 BB
Flop : (13.3 BB, 2 players) 3c 7c Jc
Hero bets 6.65 BB, BTN calls 6.65 BB
Turn : (26.6 BB, 2 players) 6c
Hero bets 13.62 BB, BTN calls 13.62 BB
River : (53.84 BB, 2 players) 9d
Hero bets 26.89 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 26.89 BB
Hero shows Ac Jh (Flush, Ace High) (Pre 63%, Flop 87%, Turn 98%)
BTN shows 4c 5h (Flush, Jack High) (Pre 37%, Flop 13%, Turn 2%)
Hero wins 107.62 BB
I went on to defeat this player heads up and win my first table, only to flame out early on the second table for a min-cash.
So far I’ve played every WCOOP event, though that streak will end when I skip the NL Draw tournament tomorrow morning. I’ve cashed three of the six events I’ve played and two of the three that I registered on time. Those are streaks I’d like to keep alive!