One of the more satisfying feelings in poker is when you work out every possibility in a hand. Anticipating and preparing for when an opponent errs is almost a high for me and certainly entertaining enough to examine for a strategy article here on PocketFives. In this piece, I thought we’d peer into a hand I played in a $109 tournament on PokerStars.

The villain was a decently tight reg running 15/13 with a 6.2% 3bet. He had 102 BBs and was UTG+1. His early position raising range was usually 13%, but in this session, he’d been opening up due to his larger stack size. He was a solid all-around player.

He’s the type of player I’ve heard has saturated the games now. Many people complain that these generic regs are not great, but they all take just a little money out of the game and they’re difficult to draw money from. However, if you know what to look for, you can get money from a tough regular too.

I was sitting next to the villain with 7d-5d and 70 BBs. I thought he would not adjust well since it’s not in his normal game to open from early position much. I looked at his Fold to 3bet. He had folded four times out of the eight times he’d been 3bet.

If I was thinking of purely bluffing with something like 9-2, this was a horrible situation for that. I still had five people to act behind me. His Fold to 3bet was not high enough for me to really want to do it with any two cards.

Most of the stacks behind me are around 40 BBs. They can’t flat and their stack is a little too big to jam. Clicking on their session statistics showed that everyone was playing pretty tight. This was in the middle of a WCOOP Sunday and people were pretty occupied. I figured no one would go after my 3bet.

Still, I can’t just 3bet him without more information. If he’s decent post-flop, he’s not opening with enough hands to really isolate him here. I eyeballed his Fold to Continuation Bet statistic, a very important factor here since our opponent will be checking to us out of position quite a bit.

Wow, he folds 74% of the time to continuation bets over a huge sample. That is a huge Fold to Continuation Bet percentage. A normal, honest, tight-aggressive regular, the kind of guy who really only continues with a decent pair or a good draw, has a Fold to Continuation Bet of about 60%. If you think about it, this makes sense. About one time out of three you hit the board and a small percentage more than that you hit some mediocre draws. A 74% Fold to Continuation Bet means I can rely on this opponent check-folding some decent middle pairs.

7-5 suited will flop two pair, an open-ended straight draw, a flush draw, or any of those draws with a pair 25% of the time. We’re in position. When we continuation bet this flop, he is folding too much. If he calls us, we can just check back when he checks the turn and take a free card. If we’re blessed with a goofy two pair or another hand worth double-barreling with, then we can apply pressure. It’s all up to us when we’re in position.

An examination of his Check-Raise statistic shows it’s 3%. That’s akin to middle sets+. He’s not going to be check-raise/bluffing ever.

I’ve been playing pretty snugly for a while. We seem to have a mutual respect for each other. His Vs. Hero statistics with me are pretty tame. 3betting in this spot isn’t generally a steal. I think this is a good time to throw a change-up.

He opens to 800 at 200/400 with an ante of 50. I make it 2,000. The pot is now 3,800. I’m risking 2,000 to win what’s in there. 2,000/3,800 = 0.52631. I need him and everyone else to fold more than 52.63% of the time here in order to 3bet without cards.

If he is opening more than normal, I would assume he’s raise/folding enough hands to make the 3bet profitable versus solely him, but with five players to act, I don’t think 52.63% of the time everyone is folding. For this reason, I wouldn’t 3bet with just a blocker here. We need something we can’t flat like 7-5s, but still has a ton of post-flop semi-bluff potential.

Everyone folds around to him and he flats 1,200 fairly quickly out of position.

The board comes Ad-10h-7s. This is normally one of the worst boards I could continuation bet into. He will have more A-X combinations than anything in his range. However, he is a special opponent. He will not be calling with a number of gutshot straight draws, middle pairs, and he could even possibly fold a weak ace.

He checks to me. I bet 2,000. I do not need to bet more because of my position and this opponent’s direct way of playing the flop. I am risking 2,000 and the pot I will win when he folds is 7,000. 2,000/7,000 = 0.28571, so we need him to fold 28.57% of his hands in order to make this continuation bet profitable with any two cards.

He normally folds 73% of the time on the flop. He’s out of position, so normally that number should be higher given the situation.

You see why this is such a great spot?

If our opponent called us with a very tight range pre-flop, say 66+, AJs+, AJo+, KQo, KJs+, QJs+, J10s+ with no AA or KK (we assume he 4bet those hands), he still has absolutely no hand 24.2% of the time. Even if you strengthen that range by including AA and KK, he still has nothing 22.2% of the time. An additional 16.7% of the time he has a pair under middle pair, which you know he’s never calling with. The next 12.1% is made up of QQ and JJ combinations, which this opponent could possibly fold, although it’s not likely.

He doesn’t have a hand that can beat top pair 57.6% of the time. He doesn’t have a hand that beats middle pair 42.4% of the time. Assuming he plays the exact same way he’s played over thousands of hands, we have a profitable continuation bet.

Not to mention, when he calls, we still have two sevens, three fives, and backdoor diamonds we could hit. It’s our choice in position whether we want to pot control and see a free card or charge the man.

He time banks for a while and then calls my small continuation bet. I don’t believe he’s going to the turn with a very wide range. I don’t see as much value in double-barreling even if the turn is a diamond. I’d rather take a free card because he has mostly A-X combinations that aren’t folding to undercards.

The turn is the five of spades, giving me a small two pair.

The great thing with a player like this is if you hit a hand, you have massive implied odds. He will not fold top pair once he’s called on the flop. The flop is where he decides to continue until the river and he doesn’t do much calling with a plan to reevaluate the turn. That’s why his Fold to Continuation Bet is so high.

If he check-raises, you can fold knowing there’s no chance in hell he is bluffing. He always has a hand that beats bottom two pair.

Admittedly, I did something stupid here. I was multi-tabling and mashed a normal bet I do to keep in middle pairs. I bet 4,400 into a pot of 9,000. In retrospect, his range on the turn is heavily weighted toward A-X combinations. Guys who always fold on the flop hold on for dear life when they call. They’ve waited so long to continue to a turn that it usually makes them sick to give up at any point afterward. I think I should have bet 6,000 to 7,000.

He calls. The river is the four of clubs. It’s a beautiful card. There was little chance he flatted with A-4s pre-flop, so that card doesn’t make a superior two pair possible.

There is 17,800 in the pot and I bet 9,400. I think not going for a five-digit number here makes the bet look smaller than it is. It sounds stupid, but there’s a reason every car dealership on Earth sells things for $19,999 and not $20,000.

He ended up time banking for a long while on the river, so maybe it was better to bet smaller on the turn and river. Eventually, he called with As-Qs and I collected a 45 BB pot.

Alexander AssassinatoFitzgerald has been a professional poker player since he was 18. A large winner in cash games, SNGs, and tournaments, Alex has amassed $3,000,000+ in tournament earnings alone. Alex is an instructor at PocketFives Trainingand can be reached for private lessons at Assassinatocoaching@gmail.com. You can also follow his Twitter @TheAssassinato or his blog at Pokerheadrush.com. He currently resides in his suburban home in Costa Rica with his girlfriend and poodle.