Participants:
(1) Jon Lundy – Only in his third year as a pro, Jon Lundy has already built up a strong reputation, winning an EPT side event for £7,430, finalling two ECOOP events and finishing fifth in the FTOPS $300 rebuy for $60,000.
(2) Sida Yuen – Sida Yuen is a professional online cash player who has shown profits in stakes ranging from $0.25/0.50 to $5/10. He recently returned from WSOP as one of the Vegas 8.
Part One - Jon’s Hand:
History: As part of the Black Belt Poker Grading, Jon is playing $0.25/0.50 six-max No Limit Hold’em cash. We are currently four-handed. Fellow Grader Sida is also at the table with $146.71; Jon has $134.71 and they are seated in the big and small blind respectively. The two have a history of playing hands against each other and can often three-bet each other light preflop.
The Hand:
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to jonathanlundy [ Jc Qd ]
good2cuagain folds
jackac1ubs folds
jonathanlundy raises [$1.25 USD]
grindondamind raises [$4.00 USD]
jonathanlundy calls [$3.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 2d, 3c, Kc ]
jonathanlundy checks
grindondamind bets [$7.00 USD]
jonathanlundy calls [$7.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4d ]
jonathanlundy checks
grindondamind bets [$16.00 USD]
jonathanlundy raises [$38.90 USD]
grindondamind calls [$22.90 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 4s ]
jonathanlundy bets [$84.31 USD]
Sida’s Analysis:
Preflop: Being 275 big blinds deep effective, I’d expect myself to three-bet Jon with a very wide range and put him in a lot of tough spots post-flop, especially if we have a history of playing hands aggressive versus each other. This is a reason for limping in the small blind: to keep the pot small preflop.
Despite this, I feel that unless Jon starts limping monsters (A-A/K-K/Q-Q) occasionally to balance, I can put Jon on a weaker and marginal range when he limp-calls and I can barrel off on certain board textures to keep the pressure on. It’s also very transparent if Jon only opens his very strong hands (such as A-J suited and above and T-T and above) but limps everything else. It’s important to disguise your hand as much as possible when playing out of position deep against an aggressive thinking player. When you have a semi-marginal hand, you don’t want to represent that by limping, because you tell your opponent exactly what you have: a marginal hand that can’t stand heat.
All in all, I think his preflop open is fine. A hand like Q-J off-suit is strong enough to open in the small blind, and by raising he retains the initiative and can continuation bet a lot of high card or dry flops to represent strength even if he misses. I expect myself to call a fairly wide range as well, so more often than not Jon will retain the initiative in the hand.
After I three-bet from the big blind, I think Jon’s call is fine as well. We are 275 big blinds deep; he has good implied odds to flop something huge. Even if he completely misses, he can make some plays on certain flop textures as he should know that I am three-betting a wide range. If he spikes a queen or a jack, he can choose to pot control and proceed cautiously, allowing me to barrel off my bluffs.
A potential four-bet: On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind a four-bet here either by Jon if we were 100 big blinds deep. Jon will be turning his hand into a re-bluff, but it will put myself into a ‘push or fold’ situation a lot of the time, and Jon can four-bet relatively small to be effective, giving himself a cheap price to re-bluff. However, being 275 big blinds deep, a four-bet could invite a lot of calls and Jon will be forced to play a bloated pot out of position, with a lot of reverse implied odds if he hits a queen or a jack.
Flop: When Jon flat calls the three-bet, a check-fold here is the standard play. He missed completely apart from a couple of backdoor draws; there’s not much wriggle room on this type of flop texture (semi-dry flop). He can check-raise to take the pot down as I would be continuation betting air a lot, however he is not representing much himself (only two plausible combos of sets and some flush draws) and I don’t see myself folding any pair here to one raise.
I think his check-call on the flop is too fancy, as to someone like me it represents a fairly medium-strength/marginal range like 8-8/9-9 or K-x, and I expect myself to barrel quite often. We might be folding the best hand, but it’s the preferred play if I was in Jon’s shoes, simply because I can apply too much pressure on later streets.
Turn: It seems like Jon check-called the flop to make a move on the turn. However, this is not a good turn card for him to make a move on. The four is a relative blank, and if anything should improve Jon’s calling range in my view (when I’m playing in the hand).
Jon should know that I wouldn’t barrel such a blank card with bluffs as I would not expect Jon to fold whatever he called the flop with. I’d expect myself to just give up most of my bluffs by this point of the hand, say if I had something like J-9 off-suit, and if I had ace high I would almost certainly check back here. The same goes with a hand like 8-8 or J-J. Therefore, if I continue to bet this turn, I should have a relatively strong hand or at least a very strong draw that isn’t folding to a check-raise. Jon is representing such a narrow range of hands here on the turn, I doubt with our dynamic and history that he will be able to push me off my hand.
I don’t advocate check-raising this turn, and the bet size is too small as well.
River: On the off-suit four river, it’s definitely not a great card to continue with the bluff. By now it’s even harder for Jon to push me off my hand, unless I had a big draw that missed, as it’s such a blank card. He also snap-shoved the river which signifies a couple of things to a thinking player:
1) He either had the near-nuts and was shoving regardless.
2) He was bluffing on the turn with no showdown value and was going through with the bluff regardless of the river.
By snap-shoving, Jon is representing a very huge hand. The shove is approximately pot-sized, and he shoved instantly. If Jon had a hand like A-K/K-Q or K-3 suited (which got counterfeited on the river), he would think about it a bit more before making his river decision, and also he may not shove his whole stack in as the bet may be too thin. It makes his range very polarised.
I would not recommend bluffing or shoving in this spot if I was Jon, as I will be not folding any made hand that I called on the turn. A better spot to bluff would be if the river was a six or completed a backdoor flush, as Jon can represent more combination draws that got there. Also he should time down a few seconds before bluffing any river in general to disguise a snap-decision that he’s made already.
I feel the only alternative is to fire a half to two thirds pot sized bet as it would allow me to fold my missed draws, but this bet may look very suspicious as Jon has just under a pot-sized bet left on the river, and if he did have a hand, the only natural bet to make here is a shove.
The Reveal:
grindondamind calls [$84.31 USD]
grindondamind wins $267.42 USD from main pot
grindondamind shows [ Ah-As ]
Conclusion: This was an interesting hand. Preflop and flop were fairly standard: I want to build the pot with the near nuts against Jon who I have some aggressive history with, expecting him to call me light or play back occasionally.
I was very confident with my hand until the turn. On the turn, his check-raise was fairly small, and to me it initially screamed of a near nutted hand like 4-4 or 6-5, or air. Then I also thought he could be tricky enough to put a check-raise in here with a combination draw, hands like 5-4 of clubs, 5-3 of diamonds, and A-5 of diamonds.
However, I felt that if he did have a strong made hand or strong combination draw on the flop, he would check-raise or lead the flop himself a very large percentage of the time (hoping to induce a bluff-raise or protection raise from me). With a strong hand like 2-2 he would be hoping to build the pot, and with a strong draw he would like maximum fold equity.
This means I can eliminate 2-2, 3-3, most club draws and K-K (he would four-bet this preflop a large percentage of the time). So the only hands he is check-raising the turn for value with is 4-4, A-5 and 6-5, and very rarely K-4 (if he plays this preflop); and the rest being turned diamond combination draws or air. I also thought a large percentage of the time he wouldn’t check-call with a bare gutshot hand like 6-5 on a flushing flop, so I really felt his value range here was very narrow. Also, since we have such an aggressive history and dynamic, I felt that he could be turning a lot of his weak made hands into bluffs.
The bet size definitely looked suspicious, and to me it looked like he was trying to save enough behind so he could shove on the river as a bluff with a pot sized bet, to gain maximum fold equity.
I decided to call his check-raise on the turn since I had position and if he did have a big combination draw I could fold the river if he hit. I felt that three-betting the turn was an option to protect my hand, however all his combo draws will still have a lot of equity against me, and if he had a set or A-5/6-5, I am completely crushed. I also want to give him room to continue bluffing by representing a weaker hand by just flatting his check-raise.
The river was definitely not an easy call, but his timing and the river card shifted the decision for me. As I explained earlier, his snap-shove polarises his range - he either he had a monster and is shoving regardless or he has a bluff and he is bluffing regardless. If he had a combination draw, he would take some time to evaluate if he hit or missed, and whether or not he was going to bluff at the pot if he missed.
The river card is an essential brick, and all the draws whiffed. Since he is representing such a narrow range of hands, and we have a very aggressive history, I decided he has fewer monsters in his range and a lot more air, so I made the call. In general I was quite pleased with the way I played the hand. If Jon picked a better spot to bluff, or if I had a weaker hand, I would find it much harder to make the call, so definitely kudos to him for pulling the trigger.
Jon’s Analysis:
Preflop: In the small blind I’m always folding or raising. I hate to play pots out of position; being out of position is the worst thing in the world to me. You have to make playing a hand as easy as possible and this definitely isn’t an easy way to play a hand. Also, the chances the big blind actually has a big hand is rare so most times you’re going to win the pot preflop and move on to the next hand. I think my open against Sida is very standard.
A potential four-bet: I knew once I’d opened that Sida was going to three-bet me. This doesn’t mean he has a hand though. I think a lot of the Graders have been battling each other a lot and as you will have seen, there have been some weird showdowns. I also know that Sida loves suited connectors so his range here was so wide that I always planned to open-call the three-bet. I considered four-betting but, same again, he just doesn’t like folding against me. We’ve been in this spot before where he actually called my three-bet with J-3, etc, so I know he will always just jam on me which means I cannot call. I also thought my hand was actually half decent in this spot: it makes lots of draws and is easy to get away from if I think I’m dominated.
Flop: I decided to check-call on the flop because I knew he would barrel the turn again with any two card so I planned to get as much in the middle before I took the pot away from him with my check-raise on the turn. After lots of discussions with Sida we realised a big secret for the $0.25/0.50 games was the double barrel. Also, I think Sida could also have a lot of draws in his range, plenty of gutshots, flush draws, and up and downers, so I could possibly get him off these hands as the board has now paired. I don’t make this same play against many other players, but we have no much history it had to be done.
Turn: I still like my choice of check-raising the turn, it gets him off so many hands such as pocket pairs from 5-5 upwards and I think he actually passes out a lot of draws. I made the bet size pretty small to scream monster. I think this would have worked a lot of the time and if I were in his position I would have folded a wide range of hands.
River: I was always going to shove on the end regardless of the river card. At this point I had put Sida on K-J, K-T, T-T, J-J and felt like he would have to fold all of these hands on the river. Also in Sida’s range were hands such as 7-6 possibly with suits, but, to be honest, I think he would have shoved these on the turn or folded. I can’t see him ever flat calling in that position with those hands.
Conclusion: In the first few days of the Grading, Sida let me know that he was constantly going to try and outplay me (and generally succeed) by three- and four-betting me with hands such as A-7s, J-3s and lots of suited connectors, he was also then willing to jam on me preflop very light and value bet me so thin. Every time I three-bet, he shoved, every time I continuation bet the flop, he raised. I think its just general Grader ego as I like to call it. We all took some weird lines against each other during the Grading and that’s how it will always be, you cant put 50 guys in a room, make them do something they’re “experts” at and not expect huge egos and a sick competitive edge to shine through!
I think Sida’s analysis of the hand is perfect and looking back at it he pwnd me: he sat back, let me do the hard work and scooped the pot. O think my play was actually pretty good and would work if the river was a scare card, like a five, six, three, deuce, or if the flush got there, as I would definitely play a draw like this. I never had Sida on A-A at any point, let alone A-K or K-Q, so I always figured my jam on the river would make him fold. In my eyes it was always that there were far more hands that I could make Sida fold than there was hands for Sida to call with. Looking back, I did this move at the wrong time and to the wrong person.