In my last post, I talked about playing a big draw and the importance of being the one who puts in the last bet. Today I’m going to look at a hand where I played a big draw in just the opposite way, betting the flop in a situation where stack sizes were such that if my opponent chose to proceed with his hand, he was likely to check-raise all in. After presenting the hand, I’ll talk about why I played it the way I did.
First, though, I want to tell you about the table conditions. We were at the final two tables of the afternoon $150 tournament on Full Tilt, down from about 218 entries. There are no satellites to this tournament, which means that the field is on average a little tougher than what you’ll see in the night $150 on Poker Stars, which does have satellites. Still, there is plenty of weak play, even at this late stage.
I was the tournament chipleader by a wide margin, and had been opening pots pre-flop very aggressively from any position. I was probably open raising an average of almost three times per orbit.
The Villain in this hand is horryclutch, a regular in a lot of larger tournaments on Poker Stars and Full Tilt. He and I have played together in several of those and also a few times at 2/4 and 3/6 NL. I consider him to be a good but not particularly tricky player. I don’t know what he thinks of me, and we don’t have enough history for me to expect him to try something truly bizarre or creative against me.
Here’s the hand:
Seat 1: WARDROPS (13,220)
Seat 3: Messapo (33,879)
Hero: urbandb888 (70,300)
Seat 5: horryclutch (22,068)
Seat 6: fishfash (24,130)
Seat 7: KowntinYoChips (18,854)
Seat 8: turn_out (17,843)
Seat 9: bowser125 (14,927)
Full Tilt Poker (8 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
Preflop: Hero is Button with 4s, As. Blinds 400/800/100
5 folds, Hero raises to 2200, SB calls, 1 fold.
Flop: 8h, Ks, Ts (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets 4000, SB raises 19768 (All-In), Hero calls.
Turn: 9h (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: 9d (2 players, 1 all-in)
I open for a little less than 3x the BB from the button with A4s. Very standard.
Horryclutch calls for about 10% of his stack out of the SB. He’s calling off about 10% of his stack here, which makes me think he’s got a little something. His stack size is awkward to reraise with some medium strength hands that are probably ahead of my range, since he would have to worry about a 4-bet all in from me, so I think he could easily have something like AT or KJ. With a pocket pair, even a small one, he’d probably reraise and be willing to call a shove. Those are tough to play out of position, especially since he can’t count on stacking me if he hits a set, so I’m discounting these somewhat. I also think he’d usually reraise a very strong broadway hand like AK or AQ, though I’m sure he’s capable of just calling with them.
I flop a flush draw plus an overcard to the board. However, this flop is likely to connect well with horryclutch’s hand also, as he’s probably picked up either a pair or a straight draw if he did start with unpaired broadway cards. If he has a pair without an Ace, I’ve got about 50% equity in the pot, meaning that I’m willing to get the money in, but I want to do everything I can to encourage him to fold.
When he checks the flop, there are 6000 chips in the pot and about 20,000 left in our effective stacks. If I wanted to ensure that I got in the last bet, I could just shove all in, but that looks exactly like a draw and would probably get called by nearly any pair. It’s important here that I’m dealing with a smart, successfuly player rather than some guy sitting with less than a full stack at a 2/4 NL table.
I could check behind, take a free card, and maybe shove the turn if my opponent bets. However, if he chooses to the bet the flop, it won’t often be with the intention of folding to a shove, and my equity goes way down on a blank turn, since I would then have only one chance at hitting twelve outs rather than two.
On some flops, I would check behind, but this particular board is a good one for a continuation bet. There aren’t a lot of Kings in horryclutch’s pre-flop calling range, certainly not as many as there in my CO raising range, so I can’t be overly concerned about him having made top pair. If he has a pair of Jacks or less, he may elect just to call my bet rather than to move all in.
Once I bet the flop, I have to call the all in, not least because I will still have an above average stack if I lose. In addition, I have the odds to get the money in against a one pair hand as long as my Ace is live, and if you’ll recall, I discounted AK from his range preflop. Most importantly, his check-raising range probably includes draws that are behind my draw. He could have QJ for an open-ended straight draw, or if I’m really lucky, a worse flush draw with no pair.
Basically, this is a situation where I have good equity versus his check-raising range plus good fold equity with a continuation bet versus hands like AT or 77. I don’t need to put in the last bet to have fold equity against them. The stack sizes created a situation where there wasn’t a plausible way for me to make the last bet, so I had to settle for the profitable move that was avaialable to me. As it turned out, I was up against KQ, meaning I had slightly worse than 50% equity. Even after missing my twelve outs and losing half my stack, I was still in very good shape to be a contender at the final table.