Interesting Deep-Stacked Hand

I was initially disappointed to see that FTP had eliminated its $4/$8, $15/$30, etc. deep stack tables. Then I saw that they’d replaced them with deep-stacked versions of “regular” games like $5/$10. What a brilliant idea! The action is much better at these than it ever was in the old deep games, which very rarely went at all.

Here’s an interesting (though not necessarily good) hand that I played at one of these recently:

Full Tilt Poker No-Limit Hold’em, $10 BB (6 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

SB ($2187)
BB ($1107)
UTG ($2491)
MP ($1312.75)
CO ($1960)
Hero ($3346)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 6h, 6d.
2 folds, CO raises to $35, Hero raises to $120, SB raises to $285, 1 fold, CO folds, Hero calls $165.

Flop: ($615) Qd, 5c, 4d (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks.

Turn: ($615) 8s (2 players)
SB bets $425, Hero calls $425.

River: ($1465) As (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $886, SB calls $886.

Final Pot: $3237

He tanked for a long time before finally calling with KK.

Making this call pre-flop is a common mistake I see with 100 BB stacks. In this case, though, I’m getting nearly 3:1 and there is nearly 10x the amount I need to call left in our effective stacks. Frankly, I didn’t put enough thought into his pre-flop range. I’d been 3betting the CO a ton from my button, and this was a great spot for SB to cold 4-bet on a bluff (to the extent that such a thing exists), but especially given his raise size, I should have given him credit for a bigger hand post-flop.

Really, it was his flop check that through me off. With these stacks, it’s a fine time to check KK. If anything, I should have given him more credit, because this is a good flop to bluff with a whiffed AJ or something.

So the turn call was a mistake, I think- even if I did turn a gut shot. But things get interesting on the river.

The Ace hits a big part of his range that I was beating on the turn, so at this point I don’t think 66 has much showdown value. At the same time, I don’t expect him ever to check a pair of Aces or better because I’ve represented a hand that will be happy to check behind and take a free showdown.

Because of that, my bet should get a lot of credit. Nothing about my play suggests that I have a hand that needs to bluff (and in fact, I wouldn’t, except that I made a bad turn call). My objective was to get him off JJ or TT with a ‘blatant value bet’ small enough that it could conceivably be made even by a Q. Obviously then I never expected him to fold KK, and the fact that he considered it makes me pretty happy with the bluff, since it’s essentially the top of his range here.