Poker Hand Of The Week: 2/27/14You Decide What's The Best Play |
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Give us your opinion in the comments section below for your chance at winning a six-month Card Player magazine digital subscription.
Ask any group of poker players how you played your hand and they’ll come up with dozens of different opinions. That’s just the nature of the game.
Each week, Card Player will select a hand from the high-stakes, big buy-in poker world, break it down and show that there’s more than one way to get the job done.
The Scenario
There are 16 players left and you are in the money in a major tournament and have already locked up more than three and a half times your buy-in in prize money. With a stack of 1,303,000 and blinds of 10,000-20,000 with a 3,000 ante, you have over 65 big blinds and are among the chip leaders.
The action folds to you in late position and you down at AA. You raise to 50,000 and the player in the big blind, holding a middle stack with 729,000, three-bets to 120,000.
Knowing you can take a flop in position, you opt to just call. The flop comes down 772 and your opponent bets 180,000. You call and the turn is the 7, giving you a full house.
Your opponent checks. He has 426,000 remaining.
The Questions
Do you bet or check behind? What kind of hand could your opponent be holding? Does his flop bet and turn check indicate that he is giving up on the hand? If so, what is the best way to get value from your hand? Do you check behind and hope he catches up, or bet for value before a scare card hits the river? If betting, how much?
What Actually Happened
At the CAD $5,000 buy-in WPT Fallsview Poker Classic in Niagara Falls, Canada, Jason James decided to check behind with his pocket aces on a board reading 7727.
The river was the A and his opponent, Shaun Roberts, moved all in for his last 426,000. James immediately called with his aces full and Roberts could only show down a cooler with his AK for sevens full.
Roberts was eliminated in 16th place, earning CAD $18,506. James took the chip lead and parlayed it into a third-place finish for CAD $147,090.
What would you have done and why? Let us know in the comments section below and try not to be results oriented. The best answer will receive a six-month Card Player magazine digital subscription.