Poker Articles

By Fox | Published Jun 22 2006, 07:03 AM
I see people asking for more hand histories on the forums frequently, so maybe some of you will get some use out of this one. It's also a little taste of what we do on my site, and as a new feature in only it's third week it seems to be quite well liked already. The complete post is below, with the name from the original player removed.

This week's HHotW is an excellent question, and a very good hand history, but yet again we have incomplete information. When posting tournament hands please let us know how many people are left, how far you are from the money, etc.

Our Hero is in a $10 MTT on Full Tilt, in what appears to be a fairly large field. We are definitely into the second hour of the tournament because the blinds are 100/200. Our Hero is also the largest stack at his table with T$8,020 giving him an M of over 25. He's quite comfortable at the moment, but a few extra chips never hurt right?

Our hero is in middle position and the table folds around to a player to his right who raises to $600. Luckily our hero has amassed some stats on this player, and has his VP$IP at 15.3% and his Preflop Raise at 13.9% over a sample of 72 hands. That's valuable information, and in this case it makes our decision easier. Now back to the hand.

Facing a raise from a tight player in middle position our Hero looks down at 9 9. Whether to call raise or fold can be a tough decision in this spot, but that is for another day. On this day our Hero called.

The flop is 7 3 9

Top Set! On a ragged board with no draws out! It doesn't get much better than that does it? Our hero even has position on his opponent, and pay close attention here, knows enough about the guy to put him on a very narrow range of hands. That part about the range of hands will be important later.

The villain bets T$600 into a pot of T$1,500. A pretty weak bet to be sure, but what is he trying to accomplish? Most likely he is trying to chase away a hand like AK or AQ that has missed the flop and may fold for a small bet like this one. Because we know that the enemy has been tight and he open raised from middle position with a fairly good sized stack and no pressure on him we can put him on a pair 88 or higher, or a big ace. The bet says a big ace to me.

Most players with an overpair will firmly believe they are ahead on a flop like that, and if they are worried about a set they will want to find out whether they are beaten. With an overpair most players at the $10 level, even thsoe who are fairly solid, will try hard to protect that overpair one way or another. A pot sized bet on the flop, or a big check raise maybe, but not a little whimpy bet like 1/3rd of the pot. Honestly how often do you see someone bet 1/3rd of the pot on the flop with an overpair?

In addition to how unlikely it is that the guy has an overpair now, we also wouldn't be able to have much of an effect on the outcome of the hand if our opponent does indeed have an overpair. We're probably going to get all his chips no matter what we do unless an overcard to his pair comes, which is fairly unlikely. Because of these things I won't give the possibility of an overpair much weight here, and I'll put my opponent on two big cards and play accordingly.

Our Hero calls the tiny flop bet, another play that we could debate, but I believe it is the correct one most of the time.

The turn is the 2

The villain bets out again, this time T$1,000. Here's where our Hero had his question. Do you call or raise here?

A flat call of two fairly small bets doesn't look like a lot of strength and may get your opponent to bet again on the river before you spring your trap. If he has an overpair he will almost certainly bet the river again, but he may just fold to a big raise fearing a set. You run some risk of your opponent catching up to you, but with his range of hands he has 2 outs at most unless he is holding two hearts. Is he holding two hearts? That is the question of the day isn't it?

I don't think so. Anything is possible, but he bet T$1,000 into a $2,700 pot. A good chunk of his remaining stack, without trying too hard to force a fold by moving all-in. If this is a semi-bluff it's an odd one, and a rare one as well.

With a hand like AK many players would move all-in, but you're really seeing monsters under the bed if you are afraid of two hearts here, especially with the odd bet. The odd bet looks a bit more like an overpair, but a last ditch attempt to get an opponent to fold still seems most likely because the first bet was only called, and wasn't very large in the first place. The only thing it doesn't look like is two big hearts.

As an aside that small bet on the flop was a big mistake on the part of our villain. With a larger bet he could have defined our hero's hand and gotten away from his own hand more easily. The small bet tells him nothing, rarely forces a fold, and begs to be raised.

So we have determined that our villain is probably drawing to two outs, or completely dead. We also know that he has enough chips left to fold. Something else that you should all know by now is that a raise on the turn is terrifying to a solid player. I don't think we want to scare this guy off, and a raise would likely do so. Any hand he would call a raise with he will probably bet on the river anyway, and hopefully pot commit himself. If he checks the river we can make a small value bet that he will have to call if he has anything at all.

The short answer is that it is almost certainly best to smooth call here. It's a little risky, but it's a profitable gamble, and that is really all you can ask for in no-limit Hold Em. If you can get +EV gambles you have to take the oppurtunity unless there is a very pressing reason not to.

In this case our Hero raised and the villain folded, which tells me with almost complete certainty that he had AK or AQ and they were definitely not hearts.

I'll see you at the final table,

Fox

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