Participants:
1. Joe Roberts – Blue Belt Joe is a product of the Grading and recently won a side event at UKIPT Nottingham.
2. David Docherty – An Omaha specialist from Scotland, David has cashed in both the WSOPE and Aussie Millions Main Events for a combined $56,166.
Part One: Joe’s Hand
History: We’re playing a spot of $1/2 six-handed cash and Joe has increased his stack to $336.31. David (bh0yw0nder) is also at the table. The stats on the villain are 50.4 / 19.3 / 5.4 (VPIP/PFR/AF) with an 80% limp/call preflop versus raise.
Seat 5 is the button
Seat 1: fatcontoller ( $198.37 USD )
Seat 3: cantknow ( $305.12 USD )
Seat 5: n0w0rr1es ( $508.97 USD )
Seat 6: JustinBieber ( $336.31 USD )
Seat 8: bh0yw0nder ( $200.00 USD )
Seat 10: mandag1 ( $99.01 USD )
JustinBieber posts small blind [$1.00 USD].
bh0yw0nder posts big blind [$2.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to JustinBieber [ Jc Ts ]
mandag1 folds
fatcontoller calls [$2.00 USD]
cantknow folds
n0w0rr1es folds
JustinBieber calls [$1.00 USD]
bh0yw0nder checks
** Dealing Flop ** [ 4h, Tc, 9s ]
JustinBieber bets [$4.00 USD]
bh0yw0nder folds
fatcontoller calls [$4.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Jh ]
JustinBieber bets [$12.00 USD]
fatcontoller raises [$50.00 USD]
JustinBieber calls [$38.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 3c ]
JustinBieber checks
fatcontoller bets [$114.00 USD]
Joe’s Analysis:
Preflop: Fatcontroller is the mark at the table, and limps in middle position. We have a decent hand in the small blind, and should definitely be looking to play, even though we will be out of position for the rest of the hand. Calling seems a better option than raising; raising will get us heads-up against the fish a reasonable amount of the time, but at the cost of playing a bloated pot out of position. Also, David, in the big blind, is well aware that Villain is a huge fish, and will also call our raise with a wide range, knowing that the fish will rarely be folding.
Completing seems like the best option. We get to keep the pot small while out of position, with a hand that lends itself to flopping good top pair or pair plus draw type hands which will be easy to play for value against the fish.
Flop: We flop top pair, and, with a fish in the pot, we want to get value for our hand. Any A, K or Q on the turn could potentially be bad for our hand, and the fish is certainly capable of calling with a wide range if we bet. If we bet and David raises, we have an easy fold, as it will be tough for us to make it to showdown being out of position in the hand. He will not be raising often in this spot, as he will nearly always want to keep the fish in the pot. Therefore, a lead of $4-5 seems like the best line here.
Turn: Our hand improves so we should definitely be betting again for value. $12 into a $14 pot charges any draws he might have a decent amount, but we could consider betting full pot here against a fish, who is not likely giving much consideration to bet-sizing. We should never be looking to check-raise here, as the board is so co-coordinated that there is too big a chance we end up giving a free card to a draw.
His turn raise is concerning, but considering how high his aggression factor is, I feel folding is never an option here. Our remaining options are to flat-call or raise. If we raise, it will most likely be all-in, given the sizes of the remaining stacks. Raising will extract value from draws, one pair plus draw type hands and worse two pairs, which he can definitely be raising here himself. Sometimes, however, we will get it in drawing slim against the nuts. I feel that worse two pair combos are limited here; J-4, T-4 and 9-4 I feel even he is unlikely to be playing, so really we are looking at T-9 and J-9. He will raise the flop some amount of the time with T-9 given his high AF, and we have blockers to both of these hands, which cuts down on the chances of him showing up with them.
Flatting will let him think worse hands might still be good, and provide us with more information to evaluate on the river. However, it comes at the cost of us being in a tough spot out of position with just over a pot-sized bet remaining.
River: I elected to check the river, and the fish fairly quickly bet full pot. We’re getting 2/1 on a call, so need our hand to be good 1/3 of the time to break even on a call.
David’s Analysis:
Preflop: This was the last day of the Grading and Joe had been at the table for a fair bit longer than I had, so I didn’t know as much as he did about the villain in this hand, but I did know that he was playing 63/26 over a small sample of hands on my HUD, so it was obvious how bad he was.
Everything’s completely standard preflop. I could see a raise being an option if the J-T was suited – then Joe could potentially get the fish heads-up with a little money in the pot. Being out of position on him shouldn’t be that much of a problem with 100 big blind effective stacks and such a playable hand. But with two flush draws, calling is normal.
Flop: Joe opts to lead out for $4 into $6, which I agree with. It’s very unlikely that I would have flopped a better hand here, so Joe’s bet should fold out my hand the vast majority of the time leaving him heads-up with the fish, who, by all accounts, quite likes his call button.
The fish should find a call here with any limped pocket pair, any paired flop card, any straight draw and any two over cards, giving Joe plenty of value with his 10. I folded 10d-6c to Joe’s bet, but I think it makes sense. Joe never completes his small blind preflop with a worse 10 in his hand and his lead at this pot on the flop is always for value given that the fish is in the hand. I guess he could lead some 9’s here and possibly Q-J also, but I can’t imagine many scenarios where I could call two of Joe’s bets in this pot with 10-6 and still be ahead, so I think it’s a standard fold. Joe’s whole ‘donk lead’ range here should be much tighter purely because of the fish being in the pot.
Turn: Again, I agree with Joe’s lead as well as his sizing. With $14 in the pot, there’s no need to slow down or bet any less than the $12 he makes it since the fish will call with practically anything he perceives to have equity. Things get very interesting when the fish makes it $50, however. It’s a pot-sized raise, which tells us that he’s just mashing buttons and not really considering his raise sizing. Unfortunately for us, I tend to find that this pot button mashing means strength more than it means weakness.
But as strength is relative to perception and this guy seems like a fish, we have to determine what we think he thinks a good hand would be in this spot. Could he have limped with something like A-A or K-K, ‘trapped’ Joe on the flop and now be raising for value? I don’t think it’s the most likely of all of his holdings, but I feel like it’s certainly a possibility. Any J-x hand with a kicker 9 or higher is also possible in my view, as is Q-T, or maybe even Q-9. There’s also T-9 to consider, even if there’s only one 10 left in the deck.
Joe beats all of those hands, but the fish also has some hands in his range which have Joe’s top two crushed and, if anything, these hands are probably the most likely ones to show up. We only have 4 outs against 4-4, K-Q, 7-8 and Q-8. I really don’t think the fish would limp with 9-9, so we won’t consider that one.
Now, let’s tally up our perceived range of the fish in terms of combinations of hands. Joe didn’t know that I’d folded a 10 at the time, but I’ve decided to factor it in to the numbers to make the villain’s range more accurate:
Hands we beat: A-A, K-K, J-9, Q-J, K-J, A-J, Q-T, Q-9, T-9
Combinations: 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 8, 4, 12, 3 = 61 hands we beat.
Hands we tie with: J-T
Combinations: two hands we tie with.
Hands that beat us: 4-4, K-Q, 7-8, Q-8
Combinations: 3, 16, 16, 16 = 51 hands that beat us.
If we consider that I’ve probably been a little generous in adding in hands like Q-9 and K-J, we may be able to filter that first range down a little. But then we also have to consider flush draws, since a backdoor heart draw just appeared and he could easily have T-x or 9-x of hearts. I think factoring the flush draws into account, 61 hands we beat is probably pretty close to being accurate.
That gives us a very close decision. However, we have top two pair against a fish on a draw-heavy board and he doesn’t have to have a made hand yet. I think folding here would be a mistake, so I agree with Joe’s call. I’d call too and re-evaluate some rivers.
River: The fish doesn’t river-shove all of the made hands we beat on the turn, so we might have to shave as many as 20-25 hands off our guesstimate, but he’s still betting a number of hands that he thinks are winning and a number of missed draws.
Considering he just mashed the pot button again which means he’s literally just clicking buttons at this point, we have exactly 2/1 on a call. If we stick rigidly to his ‘nuts’ turn range, then we only have to beat a third of the hand combos in his river range (around 25 combos) in order to break even on the call. I think that number can be reached by including J-9, T-9 and a few flush draws, without even having to consider that he could still have stuff like A-A or K-K.
So, I’d call here and be happy about it. If he has a straight or a set, I’d just chalk it up to a cooler and reload.
The (Non)Reveal:
JustinBieber folds
fatcontoller wins $225.00 USD from main pot
Joe: At the time, I felt his turn raise and full pot bet on the river looked so strong, and that we see K-Q here a lot of the time. In hindsight, I feel that his preflop stats and aggression factor suggest that his range here can be wider than just the nuts and sets, and that maybe he can show up with hands like Q-J, T-9 and J-9, all of which we beat. There is also a non zero chance he is bluffing with a hand like A-Q which peeled the flop and turned some equity but missed.
Either way, I think it’s a very close decision on the river, and, in game, I was happy with my fold. I do think it’s an interesting spot, and highlights how it can often be hard to put fish on accurate ranges.
David: At the time, I told Joe that I thought he’d made a solid lay down. Now I’m not so sure. There’s a lot to be said for being there at the time and being aware of the game flow, but having called the turn and seen the biggest brick in the deck hit the river, I now think that folding is probably bad – but only because we called the turn.
I’m a firm believer in the adage of “Making one mistake is not an excuse to make another” – I don’t think we have to call the river simply because we called the turn. But then why call the turn if we’re going to fold the river when an off-suit 3 comes? Surely that means we’re going to fold any river that’s not a 10 or a Jack, in which case we should be folding on the turn. One of the reasons we flat the turn instead of shoving is to let him barrel off again on the river with all those draws that didn’t get there and stuff like A-A and J-9 which he probably still thinks are good.
Nonetheless, I can understand why Joe folded and it may well have been the right decision with game flow factored in.
Read Part Two...
Also see previous 'Hand Exchanges':
Neil Blatchly & Steve Holden
Richard Hawes & David Bland
Sida Yuen & Jon Lundy
Mike Shaw & Joe Roberts
Gavin Hall & Richard Hinds
Robert Jarrett-Smith & Simon Mairs