Here is another edition of hand reviews from 2CardsCollegeexpert Yuri, aka “Ivantbearich”. This time, we are reviewing two of our training program students’ hands. Visit 2CardsCollege Pro Poker Training!

Hand #1:

This hand is from the Super Tuesday on PokerStars. The opponent is a high–stakes regular, his stats are 18/12 and, so far, he has only called to protect his blind from a steal from late positions. We have 222 hands on him and know he flats a raise with JJ when he is in late
position. He tends to fold 67% on the flop, so we can at least infer that he does not play back with no equity.

At first look, at these stack sizes, a top pair with a medium kicker should be played for stacks. However, this is just a first look. It may seem that I am being results-oriented here, but I think we are going to come to the right conclusion having analyzed the hand in Flopzilla.

Let us start by defining the opponent’s pre-flop calling range. I guess he might slow-play QQ+ and most often shove any other pocket pair as well as most of the high card combos.

Opponent’s range:

Not everyone prefers to shove small pocket pairs pre-flop, so I assigned 22-44 a 50% probability.

Then we get a check-raise from the opponent. I think he knows I would bet top pairs, some second pairs, draws, and some of the hands with backdoor draws on this board. We have not had post-flop clashes before this, so I believe he would give credit to my betting range and would not make any moves based on exploit.

I also think he would check-push most of the draws and check-raise weak draws (let’s say with a probability of 20-25%) and rarely strong draws (besides, I have a Jc blocker for his semi-bluff range) with the same probability. All value hands would not need to generate extra fold equity and would play this way in 100% of cases.

He would also do it with strong top pairs with a kicker higher than the top card on the flop. I also think he would semi-bluff check-raise/fold only the weakest gutshots because the strong ones he would either check-raise and go all-in or check-call. The rest of his range he would fold.

Thus, we have defined the villain’s range of check-raising and calling our shove:

I am behind in equity and have insufficient equity for a value push. We should also note the effective stacks. I do not think the villain would ever fold to a push and, even if he would, the probability is too low to make a push profitable due to fold equity.

We need 21% equity to make a break-even call and we have 30.5% as seen from the screenshot above. However, this equity is based on draws in the opponent’s range, mostly the weakest ones.

Thus, if we call the flop, we are in for a difficult decision. Our equity would be lower, but we should go all-in if we hit cards that strengthen our hand, although we would still be way behind the villain’s value hands, even considering he might check-push all draws from the screenshot above with close to 100% probability.

Even if we keep all of the top pairs and draws, we still do not have a value push.

This hand presented quite a few important details that we had to note when making a decision. A seemingly simple decision may turn out to be quite complicated due to factors we cannot assess precisely since we have little information. In addition, this hand shows that we sometimes want to see balance in opponents’ actions, which might not actually be there. There is a fact, which confuses me the most: with a stack of this depth, I expect the opponent to play straightforward after check-raising for almost half of his stack.

Conclusion: I should have bet/folded against a straightforward opponent.

Hand #2:

In this hand, I would like to show that you should not get married to your hand. It might be an easy river fold for many of you, yet I would like to show how a single mistake during a hand may lead to an expensive blunder on the river.

The opponent is an average regular of low- to mid-stakes. First off, I would like to note Hero’s pre-flop action. Since we are playing with antes, we have good pot odds to realize our hand’s equity against the opponent’s range. However, KQo is a hand that realizes its equity best when it is played by 3-betting an opponent to put him under pressure.

This hand is most likely suitable for a call, but there are several players behind us and we do not want to get into a multi-way pot since we would need to hit top pair or a strong straight draw. For a multi-way pot, I would prefer to have a suited hand. We have blockers for the opponent’s value range and would like to take pots with 3-bets more often, taking into account all of the factors mentioned above.

A call would be the #2 option for me since there is a high chance of getting a squeeze and I do not want to get into a multi-way pot with a non-ideal post-flop potential. Nonetheless, this hand plays pretty well heads-up in position.

Anyway, the call option is second best for me and I would prefer it to avoid high-variance 3-bet/5-bet shoves spots only if the opponent is known to often defend with a 4-bet.

The opponent’s opening range looks like this:

I think he would bet the following range in a multi-way pot:

We are already not doing too well since we only have slightly higher equity than we need to have against his range. However, we can call if we believe the opponent would sometimes c-bet a wider range. It is important to understand that we already have a borderline decision on the flop since we cannot realize our hand’s implied odds. We would face-up our hand by getting aggressive with a straight. Thus, we can only call one bet.

There are almost no pure semi-bluffs and the opponent would not always continue turning third pair plus a draw type of a hand into a bluff. This is what LAG players usually do, while an average TAG would try to get a mediocre showdown value hand to the river as cheaply as possible.

The turn is an ideal card for us, but I am afraid we cannot raise the opponent’s bet since all of his top pairs should bet/fold and he would continue with pair plus flush draws and strong hands. Thus, it turns out that we have no equity for a value raise. I think he would check the turn with top pair with a kicker lower than a Jack or even more likely than a Queen. Also, pair plus flush draw combos or just flush draws might continue betting with this sizing.

The flush got there on the river and now we do not beat anything, especially considering that AJ and AQ would not c-betting.

Conclusion: It is better to develop a habit to think 20-30 seconds longer before making a big decision. This will lead to a much higher quality decision. Hero should have definitely folded the river, but he may also need to rethink his pre-flop decision.

Do you want 2CardsCollege expert to analyze your hand? Just send it to mail@2cardscollege.comor post it in the training program thread.

In order to facilitate the process, please post your hands here in a converted format using сonverters like weaktight.com or similar. Links to the posted hands or screenshots from the hand viewer in Holdem Manager are okay too. We will accept your hands for review from today and our coaches will have the analysis ready for you within a week from the receipt.