Continued from Part One...
Participants:
(1) Richard Hawes – a professional player from Leeds, Richard focused on online STTs in which he proved to be one of the Vegas Five-O’s biggest winners.
(2) Dave Bland – The former editor editor of Flush Magazine, Dave successfully completed the Grading and showed a comfortable overall profit on STTs.
Part Two: Richard’s Hand:
History: This was only the second hand of a $50 six-max STT during the final week of the Grading. Richard considered his opponent to be a weak player. Fellow Brown Belt Kevin Allen was also at the table, playing under the moniker ‘GamblingPays’.
The Hand:
$2000.00 USD NL Texas Hold’em - Tuesday, May 12, 01:00:03 ET 2009
Table TURBO Canterbury 295665701 (Real Money)
Seat 5 is the button
Seat 1: GamblingPays ( $1500.00 USD )
Seat 3: RickardoXXX ( $1510.00 USD )
Seat 5: niko2632 ( $1510.00 USD )
Seat 6: xNePtUnEx ( $1480.00 USD )
Seat 8: soptas ( $1500.00 USD )
Seat 10: JohnnyBlaze777 ( $1500.00 USD )
xNePtUnEx posts small blind [$10.00 USD].
soptas posts big blind [$20.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to xNePtUnEx [ Ad Ac ]
JohnnyBlaze777 folds
GamblingPays folds
RickardoXXX calls [$20.00 USD]
niko2632 calls [$20.00 USD]
xNePtUnEx raises [$110.00 USD]
soptas calls [$100.00 USD]
RickardoXXX folds
niko2632 calls [$100.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 9d, 5s, Js ]
xNePtUnEx bets [$240.00 USD]
soptas calls [$240.00 USD]
niko2632 folds
** Dealing Turn ** [ 3s ]
xNePtUnEx checks
soptas checks
** Dealing River ** [ Qd ]
xNePtUnEx bets [$430.00 USD]
soptas raises [$860.00 USD]
xNePtUnEx calls [$430.00 USD]
Dave’s Analysis:
Preflop: Ah, marvellous, pocket aces. I haven’t seen those in a fortnight, I swear - bloody card rack! The pot size raise with A-A seems standard enough, although I tend to downsize the bet a touch just to get a little more action. That’s splitting hairs though. I’m going to try funnelling his hand range as I read through, so here’s my first stab at his calling range:
9-9 to 2-2
A-9s to A-2s
K-Ts to K-8s
Q-7s+
8-7s+
9-7s+
A-9o to A-2o
K-To to K-9o
Q-9o+
J-To
Flop: A two-tone flop with some texture to it means this is going to hit his calling range a reasonable amount of the time. The problem is we don’t know how hard, or if he has a made or drawing hand.
Bet size seems fair enough. I might go with a slightly larger amount in order to punish the draws such as Q-T and T-8 a little more, as well as spade draws, but the stack sizes mean stacks will be committed by the turn, I reckon.
I feel we can eliminate A-J here as many bad players will double-fist pump a raise in with the novice nuts of top pair top kicker to ‘protect’ against flush and straight draws. A weak jack might be peeling, which is why we’ll keep Q-J and below in there. Random two pair hands or medium pairs under the nine may stick around too.
Which made hands are we worried about here? J-9, 9-9 and 5-5.
Made hands which will give action but are behind: Q-J to J-8, A-9 to 9-8, A-5, T-T, 8-8, 7-7, 6-6 and some random floats. We’ll assume this is a narrow to slim chance as the player is considered bad.
Non-made hands which will give action: Q-T, T-8, K-T, 8-7 seem most plausible, with a couple of random gutshots in there, but again, less likely given player’s assumed “badness”.
Turn: Hmm. First thoughts are that it makes the flush, but considering we’re not reckoning too heavily on him having a flush draw on the flop, I almost want to say this feels like a brick. It’s a shame we don’t have the ace of spades in our hand to eliminate a lot more of those possible A-x suited holdings.
I understand why we’re checking here, but what do we do if the guy now leads for 450 or so? I think I would rather bet here and make some kind of hero fold (unlikely) or call off my stack (much more likely) if he shoves. I also think it folds out a few of those nasty Jx-Ts kind of hands from backing up into a flush.
That said, I don’t think his check behind is particularly strong. I’m leaning towards a top pair, mediocre kicker/decent second pair kind of hand here.
River: Interesting river card. He’s got there with T-8 and Q-J, while backing up onto what he might mistake as the best hand with random stuff like Q-T and K-Q. I assume he’s going to want to take to showdown with hands in that group.
Being out of position here is a bastard. Again, I naturally want to disagree with our line because it feels like one of those situations where we’re only getting called by better hands. I’d check-call rather than lead. I might miss some value or be playing too tight, but I am not too worried about that when it’s an SNG and I think I have a skill edge on the guy.
Problem is he doesn’t flat, instead going for a click-raise. Wtf? Don’t see straights doing that at all, which basically means he’s representing a cheekily played flush, a misguided set/two pair kind of hand or diddly squat.
It’s a tricky spot in truth, and honestly I think I have to pay this one off. Considering he’s a bad player, I will go with my initial turn evaluation, which was a top pair, something kicker hand (let’s pray it’s not Q-J), or a decent second pair kind of hand such as As-9x. I’m plumping for him showing up with some cruddy jack such as J-8, or possibly a horribly played K-Q/Q-T kind of nonsense.
I am analysing this while trying to build in an ‘iPoker Donk Mentality’ which is why the line might seem speculative – the one thing I have learnt after two weeks on this Grading is that anything is possible with the iPoker Idiots!
Go on then, stop laughing and put me out my misery. A mile off? God, I don’t want to know now…
Richard’s Analysis:
Preflop: I don’t think the initial hand ranges are too far off.
Flop: On the multi-way flop, I definitely agree with betting more, 320 looks much better. On such a drawy board I would expect a decent made hand that is ahead of A-A to raise straight away with the button in so I am confident I am winning on the flop. Also, nearly all flush draws have overcards or a gutshot to go with them so I would think they raise the flop too. This made me not worry about the flush on the turn and I thought it was more likely the guy had a weakish made hand of some kind.
In this particular type of game I found people nearly always read checks as weakness so if he was maybe worried about an overpair a check will often convince him that I have A-K and he can now bet his top pair confidently and then I can raise all in. I just felt there weren’t many hands in his range that had me beat and he would need in his mind to bet the turn to protect against spade draws from me. Stacks are really awkward to barrel say As-Kx on the turn and if that was my holding I would go for a check-raise all in too but of course my opponent has no idea of this so it may not be a worthwhile point.
Turn: I think Dave’s line of bet/calling the turn is fine too and I might just be getting overly complicated in my thought process to justify my check instead of being straightforward and just betting my overpair the whole way.
The check behind on the turn surprised me; I did not know what range to put him on. Straight draws were a strong possibility, he may have pot controlled a one pair type hand (which I did not think was likely but we cannot rule it out), or he may be slow-playing a made flush but again I think it is unlikely for reasons previously stated.
River: So if straight draws make up a decent part of his range then the queen river improves all of them - I think check-call is the clear line now. I would expect a player at these stakes to bet his entire straight drawing range on the river when checked to twice, i.e. the straights T-8 and K-T and also K-Q and Q-T that have just made top pair. We lose out calling a bet on this river, I have stoved [PokerStove] the range and taken out the flushes to give…
Board: 9d-5s-Js-3s-Qd
Dead:
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 42.308% 42.31% 00.00% 22 0.00 { Ac-Ad }
Hand 1: 57.692% 57.69% 00.00% 30 0.00 { Kc-Qc, Kh-Qh, Kc-Tc, Kd-Td, Kh-Th, Qc-Tc, Qh-Th, Tc-8c, Td-8d, Th-8h, K-Qo, K-To, Q-To, T-8o }
… but there is enough money in the pot to cover this loss.
It is unlikely this is his actual river range. He probably bets some other hands we beat and some we do not. It is not a super profitable spot to call a river bet when we check but it will show a profit of some kind.
As played I bet the river to get some thin value but this is wrong since more of his range beats me than not, even if that is not the case, he might fold some of the hands I beat and I will pay more versus straights when I get raised. Unfortunately, due to multi-tabling, I did not think through my decision to bet fully in the time allotted. Now that I did bet and he minimum raised I am in another awkward spot.
I had one of those “I have messed up” moments and thought he probably has me beat but since I checked the turn he could be overvaluing K-Q and Q-T or even making some weird bluff (I cannot see how he would have a hand to bluff with but it is accountable for a tiny part of his range). That thought made me call.
The Reveal: Richard made the call and his fears came true as his opponent showed K-T with no spade for the nut straight.