Poker Hand of the Week: 1/14/16You 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 six players remaining in a big buy-in, prestigious poker tournament. You are in the money and sitting with 1,985,000 in chips, good enough for fourth place overall. The blinds are 30,000-60,000 with a 10,000 ante, meaning you have 33 big blinds to work with.
The player in fifth place, villain no. 1, raises to 120,000 in the cutoff. You look down at A
9
on the button and opt to see a flop. The big blind, villain no. 2, also calls.
The flop comes down A
Q9
and villain no. 2 checks, as does villain no. 1. With top and bottom pair, you bet 180,000. Both opponents call and the turn is the 5.
Again, they check to you, and you bet 425,000. Villain no. 2 folds, but villain no. 1 calls. The river pairs the board with the Q, counterfeiting your two pair. Villain no. 1 checks again. You have 1,250,000 left and the pot size is 1,840,000.
The Questions
Do you bet, or check behind? If betting, how much? Would you be betting for value, or as a bluff? Is it possible to get a better hand to fold? Is it possible to get a worse hand to call? Given your opponent’s line, what hands are in his range?
What Actually Happened
At the 2016 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100,000 Super High Roller event, David Peters held A9 on a board reading AQ95Q and opted to check behind.
His opponent, Isaac Haxton, turned over AK and Peters mucked his cards. Ankush Mandavia, the third player in the hand, held A4 before folding on the turn.
Despite winning the pot, Haxton was the next player to bust, earning $360,060 for his sixth-place finish. Peters went out in fifth place, taking home $461,340. The eventual winner of the tournament was Bryn Kenney, who won $1,687,800.
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.
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