By
aaronbeen
Aaron Been is one of the newest instructors for CardRunners.com.
I played a hand recently in the stars $50 rebuy that illustrates how powerful hand reading can be, even when there haven’t been several streets of significant action. I made assumptions about an unknown opponent that are obviously not true 100% of the time, but I was confident that I was right often enough for my play to be a good one. I think confidence is extremely important in poker, because you don’t always have to be right in order to act on your conclusions; you just have to be right a majority of the time.
I had a relatively short stack in the $50 rebuy, and I had been playing tight, looking for a spot to reraise and hopefully double up. The antes at the 100-200/25 level are larger relative to the blinds than other levels on Pokerstars, so I was also on the lookout for any pots I could steal preflop.
PokerStars Game #8408650247: Tournament #42679281, $50+$5 Hold'em No Limit - Level VII (100/200) - 2007/02/12 - 16:59:35 (ET)
Table '42679281 12' 9-max Seat #9 is the button
Seat 1: AaronBeen (5000 in chips)
Seat 2: spike_tt (8410 in chips)
Seat 3: KILLER ACE (32630 in chips)
Seat 4: GalarZ (10460 in chips)
Seat 5: Speareman2 (25108 in chips)
Seat 6: ThePhen0m (7920 in chips)
Seat 7: makavelyces (10695 in chips)
Seat 8: Coringa2006 (27595 in chips)
Seat 9: Ludrock (4125 in chips)
AaronBeen: posts the ante 25
spike_tt: posts the ante 25
KILLER ACE: posts the ante 25
GalarZ: posts the ante 25
Speareman2: posts the ante 25
ThePhen0m: posts the ante 25
makavelyces: posts the ante 25
Coringa2006: posts the ante 25
Ludrock: posts the ante 25
AaronBeen: posts small blind 100
spike_tt: posts big blind 200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to AaronBeen [3c 3s]
KILLER ACE: folds
GalarZ: folds
Speareman2: folds
ThePhen0m: folds
makavelyces: folds
Coringa2006: folds
Ludrock: folds
AaronBeen:
When I looked down at 33 in the small blind, it was not an ideal hand for me. I felt that if my opponent reraised all in, I would be in a bad spot. I also didn’t like the idea of playing 33 after the flop. Unless I hit a 3, I knew I would never feel good about my hand. Still, I felt that my opponent would fold a significant amount of the time if I raised to 600. I would be risking 500 chips in an attempt to get 525 chips, and that's without even considering what would happen if I saw a flop.
AaronBeen: raises 400 to 600
spike_tt: calls 400
*** FLOP *** [Jd Ad 5s]
Right when my opponent flat called my raise, I began to put him on a hand. My preflop raise was a very obvious steal attempt, and I decided my opponent would almost certainly reraise me with any pair. Shoving a pair to a raise is a very profitable resteal, because even when called, you usually end up in a coinflip. Calling with a pair would also be difficult, because overcards are likely to flop. I think the exception here is aces or possibly kings, which he might call with to trap, but I decided not to worry too much about that.
I also thought he would reraise all in with any decent ace high hands. If he just called and didn’t flop an ace, he would be in a tough spot facing my bet. Like pairs, aces also have a lot of equity when you do get called. I wasn’t sure my opponent would shove a bad ace such as ace three offsuit, but I didn’t think he would flat call with it either. It’s extremely hard to hit a flop confidently with ace-x.
Eliminating the aces and pairs leaves us with hands that do flop well. Suited (or unsuited) connectors, one-gappers, and especially hands with two broadway cards. Because my opponent was getting very good odds preflop (he had to call 400 into a pot of 1125), he could have a wide range of these hands. I’d like to mention that although I haven’t attributed any great skill to my opponent, I think the style of play I just described is what I basically consider to be the correct one, in addition to being the most common in the stars $50 and $100 rebuys.
Once the flop came out, I had already decided my opponent didn’t have an ace in his hand. There were a lot of possibilities for a jack, however, and I didn’t think he would fold a jack after this point no matter what happened. The pot was just too big, and in my experience in these tournaments, no one gives or gets much credit in heads up pots. I was also concerned about a flush draw, which I knew he wouldn’t fold. I decided to bet out, because there were so many combinations of hands like 8c9c that could either hit a pair or bluff me out of the hand if I checked.
AaronBeen: bets 1000
spike_tt: raises 1600 to 2600
I was very surprised when my opponent made this raise. I had already decided he couldn’t have an ace, and it didn’t make sense for him to raise a jack like that at all. I had assumed he would just shove with a flush draw, but he could raise smaller to be tricky. With 9 diamonds and six other overcards (unless he had a deuce) a flush draw was not a hand I wanted to be up against. I would hate continuing out of position with deep stacks against a strong draw, especially one that might even be a favorite over me. But at this point, the pot was so large in relation to my stack that I wouldn’t mind getting in as a coinflip or even a slight underdog.
Also, the bet just didn’t look like a flush draw to me. I usually see tournament players play flush draws with a sense of urgency on the flop. They want to get it in before their equity decreases on the turn. They tend to shove all in when the stacks are appropriate. (They also tend to raise the pot on sites with a bet pot button, which is something I’ve been caught doing.)
What the bet did look like to me was a bluff. Most of the hands I put my opponent on preflop either totally missed this flop or hit only a gutshot. It didn’t seem out of the question that a player with no hand at all would make this small raise, feigning strength. What he probably wouldn’t consider was that I had already eliminated almost every possible strong hand.
At this point, I confidently put aside my concerns that my opponent could have some whacky monster like jack five suited or a set of aces, and I stuck the rest of my chips in. I didn’t want to fold, and I didn’t want to figure out that my opponent had hit an overcard (or diamond) later in the hand.
AaronBeen: raises 1775 to 4375 and is all-in
spike_tt: calls 1775
*** TURN *** [Jd Ad 5s] [8d]
*** RIVER *** [Jd Ad 5s 8d] [8c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
AaronBeen: shows [3c 3s] (two pair, Eights and Threes)
spike_tt: shows [Kd Ts] (a pair of Eights)
AaronBeen collected 10175 from pot
I was very lucky to have this hand turn out the way it did. I was lucky that my opponent didn’t hit a king, queen, or ten. I was also lucky that my opponent didn’t turn over A9 or something.
The important thing to learn from this is that just like my opponent can hit a king sometimes without changing the fact that my play was profitable in the long run, my play might still be right even if my opponent has an ace sometimes.