Another WSOP Tournament Hand (1 Viewer)

[upNdown]

if I were actually in this hand, I think I would have bet something close to half pot. More than a third. But after thinking about it, I think a check is the better move. I just feel like his odds of betting here if we check, combined with our odds of him calling down a river bet (because he’ll think the straight is less likely at that point and that we’re just trying to steal it) feel a lot better than the odds of him calling a bet on the turn and a bet on the river.
So I’m a check.

 

[MrCatPants]

Continuing. Given this is all about value at this point (save a weird river like a second jack) and villian's spewy tendencies, I opt to check to either induce further bluffing/hanging himself with a value bet and/or potentially get at least one call on the river. Villian obliges.

I call as seems to be consensus given the bet sizing.

Context : 1k buy-in NLHE freeze out, 2200 runners at level 3 with late reg open for several more levels. Starting stacks 20k. Structured with BB ante - at level 3 we are playing 200/300/300, so it's still early and nowhere near the money.

Relevant players:
SB (Hero) : 22k - low VPIP, no showdowns yet
BB (Villain) : 14k - been playing too many pots, VPIP is probably around 35-40%.

Pot is 800

Folds to hero, who looks down at
Hero completes to 300.
Villain raises to 700.
Hero CALLS.

Pot is 1700

Flop comes

Hero CHECKS.
Villain pauses for a few seconds and then leads almost full pot for 1500.
Hero CALLS 1500.

Pot is 4700.

Turn comes

Hero CHECKS
Villian bets 2500
Action on Hero.

 

[krafticus]

Continuing. Given this is all about value at this point (save a weird river like a second jack) and villian's spewy tendencies, I opt to check to either induce further bluffing/hanging himself with a value bet and/or potentially get at least one call on the river. Villian obliges.

I call as seems to be consensus given the bet sizing.

Context : 1k buy-in NLHE freeze out, 2200 runners at level 3 with late reg open for several more levels. Starting stacks 20k. Structured with BB ante - at level 3 we are playing 200/300/300, so it's still early and nowhere near the money.

Relevant players:
SB (Hero) : 22k - low VPIP, no showdowns yet
BB (Villain) : 14k - been playing too many pots, VPIP is probably around 35-40%.

Pot is 800

Folds to hero, who looks down at
Hero completes to 300.
Villain raises to 700.
Hero CALLS.

Pot is 1700

Flop comes

Hero CHECKS.
Villain pauses for a few seconds and then leads almost full pot for 1500.
Hero CALLS 1500.

Pot is 4700.

Turn comes

Hero CHECKS
Villian bets 2500
Action on Hero.

Villain has ~10k left after the bet, so I’d make about 15k and let him call off his stack

 

[Jimulacrum]

 

[Welshman]

Got what we wanted. Put in a check raise to $7500.

 

[upNdown]

Got what we wanted. Put in a check raise to $7500.

Yup

 

[Senzrock]

Turn is obviously beautiful, but I want to just go back to the flop for a second and highlight this comment from @utgtrash

the fact that j9 is in his range means that his range is actually weak from all the other whiffs that are in it.

We seem quick to point out that villain *could* have J9 here, which is fine, but if we note that, we have to also include the rest of his incredibly wide range here. He could just as easily have the 43s, 85o, A4 etc etc. If we are able to really internalize this dynamic, we will greatly improve our results.

(Check raising turn here myself vs loose player, but not going too big)

 

[JustinInMN]

Nice turn card, I think I like the check again, I just don't like out-of-flow bets if we deliberately played a pot out of position with an aggressor. We are playing for an opportunity to use villain's aggression to our advantage.

I think you check the turn and expect villain to go for 3-4K again, that would leave villain about 10K behind and we should just go for a shove.

I am also going to play some bluffs this way too so I like having the nuts in the check-raise all in range.

Now I see villain went to a smaller sizing closer to half pot on the turn here, after going near-pot on the flop. So I am a little concerned this is a sizing tell that might indicate he is trying to drop. But based on the starting range we are assuming, he could have anywhere from air to all the sets, and frankly, he could have QT himself and this wouldn't be shocking, so I think the upside to moving in on the turn outweighs the risk. If he drops we still got two good streets of value.

 

[MrCatPants]

Hero thinks about getting the most value here and thinks it's most likely air/a weak holding given villians previous play, and saves the aggression for the river, so opts to just call.

Context : 1k buy-in NLHE freeze out, 2200 runners at level 3 with late reg open for several more levels. Starting stacks 20k. Structured with BB ante - at level 3 we are playing 200/300/300, so it's still early and nowhere near the money.

Relevant players:
SB (Hero) : 22k - low VPIP, no showdowns yet
BB (Villain) : 14k - been playing too many pots, VPIP is probably around 35-40%.

Pot is 800

Folds to hero, who looks down at
Hero completes to 300.
Villain raises to 700.
Hero CALLS.

Pot is 1700

Flop comes

Hero CHECKS.
Villain pauses for a few seconds and then leads almost full pot for 1500.
Hero CALLS 1500.

Pot is 4700.

Turn comes

Hero CHECKS
Villian bets 2500
Hero CALLS

Pot is 9700

River is

Action on hero.

 

[Welshman]

Don’t love the river card. Puts the 4th straight card on the board which could slow V down. Bet about 40-50% of the pot and hope he calls.

 

[MrCatPants]

Don’t love the river card. Puts the 4th straight card on the board which could slow V down. Bet about 40-50% of the pot and hope he calls.

Sorry. Had the wrong card out there. Still similar-ish though in terms of making the board wet. It's been adjusted.

 

[Jimulacrum]

Well shit.

The turn was your time to strike. The pot was already large, Villain was about as invested as he was going to get, and your hand wasn't such an obvious threat. Plus he may have still been drawing.

The play now is to check and call. Your hand has turned into a bluff-catcher.

If you shove, he'll surely fold most of the time. His range is very broad. He has a lot of potential garbage hands that he'll have to fold.

Importantly, he will never fold a better hand. In fact, outside of the rare occasion when he's inspired by the gods to make a weird hero call, he's going to fold almost all of the hands that you beat too. He may pay you off with a 7. That's about it. So if you bet, for the most part, you're either pushing out hands you beat or paying off the one hand that beats you. Meh.

However, if you check with the intention of calling any bet, you still pay off his QK (there's no avoiding this now), but you also entice a bluff out of at least some of his garbage hands—hands that may well represent the lion's share of his range. He may even bet a set, expecting it to be a thin value bet when neither of you has a straight.

Or he may check back. It happens. If he has two pair or something along those lines, I'd expect a check back. And that's fine. It's the same outcome as making him fold the two pair. It changes nothing.

EDIT: Wrote that whole reply before OP fixed the river to be the instead of the . Leaving up for posterity or whatever. I still maintain that shoving the turn was the right move.

With the on the river, shove. You're unbeatable, and he could have made a straight with any number of hands in his range. He'll check back basically all the hands he'd fold anyway. He may even check back a 6 or a T where he would have paid you off. Don't let him.

 

[Skagglio]

I think the turn call is too cute. That was the best time to get the most money out of villain.

As it stands you must lead out. I'm not sure sizing matters a whole lot. The hands that may call you (x6, x10, J9, sets) don't feel great calling any size. No obvious draws missed so with 3 streets of calling your opponent should be on high alert.

 

[utgtrash]

the turn just call is exploiting a range we perceive to be very wide, as implied by the original post. The river card is obviously bad in terms of reducing our possible bluffs to I don’t know now, KQ?

i don’t have a great answer for getting value now, maybe a large bet targeting a T is possible but I might prefer actually a very small bet, maybe 1/5 pot to make it more likely you get some value and give the villian some small chance of bluff raising since he would have something like 8000+ behind the bet.

 

[JustinInMN]

I do agree. It just seems to me if villain couldn't call a shove on the turn it's probably not going to happen on the river anyway.

All that said, in this case we could hope villain improved to a lesser straight and this river now provides two possibilities. (Though I just don't see villain with many possible sixes, but surely some tens will play.)

Villain has 9k left in a 9700 pot, so maybe there is room to tease like a 2k bet and see if you can induce the shove or at least get a crying call from two pair plus.

I would like to shove here, but there's a chance that's the wrong play if villain would fold Tx.

I like betting 2k here. I might make this bet with lesser straights too that I could fold to shove so I don't think it would be an exploitable size.

 

[MrCatPants]

I think pretty long and hard on this and eventually decide this player has been pretty aggro, and my best value may be to put out what appears to be a blocker bet that both his bluffs and his 10x and 6x hands will likely shove on.

Context : 1k buy-in NLHE freeze out, 2200 runners at level 3 with late reg open for several more levels. Starting stacks 20k. Structured with BB ante - at level 3 we are playing 200/300/300, so it's still early and nowhere near the money.

Relevant players:
SB (Hero) : 22k - low VPIP, no showdowns yet
BB (Villain) : 14k - been playing too many pots, VPIP is probably around 35-40%.

Pot is 800

Folds to hero, who looks down at
Hero completes to 300.
Villain raises to 700.
Hero CALLS.

Pot is 1700

Flop comes

Hero CHECKS.
Villain pauses for a few seconds and then leads almost full pot for 1500.
Hero CALLS 1500.

Pot is 4700.

Turn comes

Hero CHECKS
Villian bets 2500
Hero CALLS

Pot is 9700

River is
Hero bets 2200
Villain pauses for about ten seconds before raising to 6500
I would pause for discussion on action, but holding the nuts on the last possible action point there is only one action. I hollywood quietly for a bit ask him how much he as behind, hollywood some more, and then go all in.

He snaps, and asks "do you have the nut?" I say "I do."
He tables (WTF???????)

As he's packing up he mutters "what a cooler", and the (decent player) older lady next to him says "it's not a cooler if you raise 10 6 offsuit preflop and river a straight on a four liner."

 

[Skagglio]

Well I'm certainly baffled by the line he took. Nice that it worked out. I think 10x, maybe 6x, is the only hand that is giving you more chips on the river.

 

[JustinInMN]

Well nice river, glad it worked out. He actually would have beat you out of half if a Q hit the river. I know I advocated for a CRAI on the turn and I do wonder if we get it all then since he just "improved" to an open-end straight draw. That said, as played, maybe villain is just determined to three-barrel it here no matter what and hero gets it all no matter how he plays the turn and no matter the river card.

I really don't understand villain's play, he bluffed every street and was second best when he "made it" one street after you did .

Well played hand on hero's part though.

 

[JustinInMN]

Another after thought, Maybe villain's thought was as simple as "he can't have QT since he didn't raise pre." So he thought he had the effective nuts.

Also, if hero had raised pre, maybe this is a hand that villain simply folds?

 

[MrCatPants]

Another after thought, Maybe villain's thought was as simple as "he can't have QT since he didn't raise pre." So he thought he had the effective nuts.

Also, if hero had raised pre, maybe this is a hand that villain simply folds?

I have no idea what he was thinking. Early, I think just that he could bully a player who appears nitty? And then started barreling his open ender?

This is why you don't play crap cards, folks, even if you hit you often still miss (quadruple true for PLO).

 

[MrCatPants]

Another hand posted here if you want to keep following along, this one very close to the money bubble: https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/yet-another-wsop-tournament-hand.91079/

 

[Jimulacrum]

Another after thought, Maybe villain's thought was as simple as "he can't have QT since he didn't raise pre." So he thought he had the effective nuts.

As someone who has barreled into an opponent in the SB like this, only to back into an unexpected big (losing) hand: yes.

Imagine you go from "I have to bet to win this with air, and my opponent has already called me down three times" to "I have the second nuts." It's almost the perfect outcome (aside from the fact that in this case, the board is super-threatening). It's one of the pitfalls of playing a LAG style; the sharp details that might allow you to discern the nuts here are all dulled by the fact of your table image. You often can't tell the nuts from the second nuts or the third nuts when you're enticing players to play back at you with any strength they can muster.

Also, if hero had raised pre, maybe this is a hand that villain simply folds?

And why would you want that? Look at all the wonderful things that happened.

Always let the LAG hang himself.

 

[CrazyEddie]

the (decent player) older lady next to him says "it's not a cooler if you raise 10 6 offsuit preflop and river a straight on a four liner."

granny got game