Participants:
(1) Richard Hawes – a professional player from Leeds, Richard focused the Grading on online STTs in which he proved to be one of the Vegas Five-O’s biggest winners.
(2) Dave Bland – The former editor of Flush Magazine, Dave successfully completed the Grading and showed a comfortable overall profit in STTs.
Part One: Dave’s Hand:
History: Dave’s table image was loose-aggressive after showing a big bluff which turned into the best hand by the river. In this hand, his opponent’s stats were 45/23/3.0 over 350 hands, so could be considered a loose player.
The Hand:
$6000.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, May 12, 09:38:56 ET 2009
Seat 2 is the button
Seat 2: godteacher ( $1500.00 USD )
Seat 3: generation86 ( $2130.00 USD )
Seat 4: SAARDERKAGE ( $1020.00 USD )
Seat 5: disismyhouse ( $2510.00 USD )
Seat 6: theotherfella09 ( $1570.00 USD )
Seat 7: Pibbish ( $2110.00 USD )
Seat 8: GODONKSGO ( $1280.00 USD )
Seat 9: casanova62 ( $2880.00 USD )
generation86 posts small blind [$30.00 USD].
SAARDERKAGE posts big blind [$60.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to disismyhouse [ 8c 8h ]
disismyhouse calls [$60.00 USD]
theotherfella09 calls [$60.00 USD]
Pibbish folds
GODONKSGO folds
casanova62 folds
godteacher folds
generation86 calls [$30.00 USD]
SAARDERKAGE checks
** Dealing Flop ** [ 2d, Jd, 2c ]
generation86 checks
SAARDERKAGE checks
disismyhouse checks
theotherfella09 bets [$240.00 USD]
generation86 folds
SAARDERKAGE folds
disismyhouse calls [$240.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4h ]
disismyhouse checks
theotherfella09 bets [$720.00 USD]
disismyhouse…
Richard’s Analysis:
Preflop: I think playing this hand under-the-gun in a full ring SNG with most players only having 25 big blinds is marginal since we cannot profitably call a raise and set mine. The table has to be very passive preflop to get away with it.
Flop: With the villain’s stats as they are it is possible for him to be limping all kinds of connectors in such early position. On the flop, I thinking checking and betting are both fine. It is one of those spots where when you bet the only worse hand calling is a flush draw and that has good equity against you so you do not achieve much from getting worse hands to call but on the flipside you have the best hand often and will take the pot down straight away so gain immediate value in that. Checking I think is probably slightly better in that if it checks around and the blinds check again then you have all the information you need about your hand and can play it well from there.
You check and now the very aggressive button bets. This could mean anything from air to a flush draw to a jack or a middle pair, he may even have trip twos but that is probably unlikely due to his early position preflop. I suppose we should include A-2 suited since he is so loose. Despite how aggressive he is I would just check-fold here without a thought since he has bet into three people. I would not consider putting up a fight when his flop bet pretty much says I will probably have to put my stack in to find out if I am right.
Eights are really marginal versus the above range; you have to have him pure bluffing a lot to make this situation profitable. The problem is that there are more streets to come and you are out of position. If you call this bet then with his aggression I would expect him to be following through on the turn a lot too with a big bet and a lot of turns are going to be guessing games. The one thing working in your favour is the use of the bet pot button. I am still not sure how much faith to put in this but it does seem to generally either be super strength or weakness. If I am right on this then the only strong hands in his range are A-2 suited since I doubt he has J-J. Therefore, it is much more likely to be a bluff or a semi-bluff rather than a one pair hand. The use of the bet pot button does vary from opponent to opponent, I am just relaying my general observation, I cannot say exactly how reliable it is but it is a good place to start if you are readless.
Turn: Now that we have called the flop we have to stick to the plan on this blank turn and call him down. I think if the turn was a diamond we definitely fold and then on other high cards it is flip a coin time which is why I do not like getting in this marginal spot in the first place; especially when stacking this player does not improve our equity as much it is hurts us when we double him up. The fact he has bet pot again is, in my opinion, definitely something in our favour for getting the money in. A half pot bet might make me reconsider.
Dave’s Analysis:
Preflop: I sent this hand to Richard for analysis as I knew it was one where we would differ in our lines of thought. Admittedly, playing the hand under-the-gun is a little more speculative than I would normally like, but the table had generally been playing passively owing to our villain (theotherfella09) playing so aggressively. While it is too early in proceedings for me to be panicking – a 25 big blind stack was fine at this moment in time – poker is a game of psychology as well as odds, and I felt a message needed to be sent to change the table flow. All we needed to do this was a favourable flop.
So, as expected, several players limped in preflop, and I have to admit that I was pretty sure that the villain would go for a squeeze if this were the case. His limp from the button signified a pretty large range of hands, including suited connecters, small pairs and ‘pretty cards’ – hands which an average rookie thinks are worth taking a flop with as they add up to 19 and can beat the banker more often than not. Yes, he was that bad.
Flop: The flop was perfect as far as I was concerned. As far as I know, they hadn’t made a card worth 19 in blackjack, so deuces were out of his range a vast majority of the time (unless it was a suited ace-deuce). I also observed that the villain had ‘Polish Border Control Syndrome’, meaning he was incapable of letting multiple Czechs through, so when it was sent around to him and he had everyone wrapping the table, he made what I thought was a cast-iron bet with anything, simply playing the button and attempting to take the pot.
The pot bet was reasonably fast, and on such a dry board I would expect a decent jack (K-J, Q-J) to bet a little less. The full bet was almost as if he was just snatching at the pot – a “well, this bet’s so big you can’t call it” kind of bet. Again, whilst this is early on in this format and it’s hard to classify players from the get-go, you do have to take on board that information which you do have.
Do I think he’d bet so strongly with top pair? No.
Do I think he’d bet this way with pairs between 2-2 and TT-? Perhaps, although a preflop raise seemed to be more in order with the top half of those, i.e., 7-7 and above.
Do I think he’d bet a flush draw like this? Possibly. I can’t eliminate this possibility, but from my experience with players of this type in the past, they tend to bet on the smaller side more often than mashing the pot button.
Do I think he’s got a deuce? Unlikely, according to my preflop thoughts; if he’s managed to get in there with A-2 and find himself a sucker who’s going to stack off with a second-pair/top pair type hand then fml!
Therefore I agree with Richard’s analysis of the flop bet: he’s either potting away with a total monster or he’s got a semi-bluff/air hand.
Turn: When the turn came the four of hearts, I’d already decided to move in if it was a brick (i.e., any non-diamond or non-ace/king). If he’d hit an ace/king/diamond, I would have had to reconsider the line to see if the size of his pot bet matched the possible holdings (so why would he pot it if a king of diamonds came on the turn, for instance). The four of hearts was thus a total dream card.
Whilst Richard is right to point out that winning this pot doesn’t increase our equity in the SNG too much, the one thing this call did do was completely alter the table dynamic. From there on, my table image was set and the path to a comfortable cash had been laid – not through acquisition of chips but by image. Psychology does count in this game after all…
The Reveal: Dave check-raised all in and his opponent made the call with A-8 of diamonds before bricking the river.