Run it Twice -- Andrew BrokosAndrew 'Foucault' Brokos Walks Us Through a No-Limit Hold'em Cash-Game Hand |
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Andrew “Foucault” Brokos is known for his knowledge of the game and experience in short-handed no-limit hold’em cash games. In addition to cash games, Andrew has also cashed in three consecutive World Series of Poker main events (2006-2008), including a 35th-place finish in 2008, earning him $193,000. An instructor for Card Player Pro (powered by PokerSavvy Plus), Brokos is used to breaking down hands for strategy analysis, and here he discusses a no-limit cash-game hand with Card Player.
The Game
Type: Cash game
Game: No-limit hold’em
Blinds: $5-$10
The Lineup
Small blind — $2,077.70
Big blind — $2,000.30
Andre Brokos — $2,000 (Under the gun)
Middle position — $1,543.50
Cutoff — $1,734.80
Villain — $2,358.50 (Button)
Run it Twice — Review of the Hand
Preflop Action: Brokos raises to $33 from under the gun with A
5. Villain reraises to $106. Brokos reraises to $266. Villain calls $160 more. The pot is now $556.
Kristy Arnett: Is this hand kind of a raise-or-fold situation? And if so, how do you decide between the two?
Andrew Brokos: I can’t say why I chose to raise in this specific situation, it’s just a relatively random position in which I didn’t fold this one time, but I do think that suited aces in general are sometimes a raise, sometimes a fold when you are in first position. I think a hand like A-5 is actually a better hand to have than like A-6 or A-7, because there is a possibility of making a straight, and the extra kicker that you have with a 6 or 7, versus of 5, doesn’t usually make much of a difference. I am more inclined to play the small aces rather than the medium aces. I am also a little more inclined to play these hands when the stacks are deeper, because the shallower you are, the more it matters whether you can make a strong one-pair hand. So, A-10 offsuit is probably a better hand when you are playing with 70-big-blind stacks, whereas when you are playing with 200-big-blind stacks, I think A-5 will be the better hand, because you have the possibility of making the nuts. I think it’s useful to have these suited aces in early position as opposed to a big offsuit ace, the deeper you get.
KA: How often is this player three-betting you in position, and how does that play into your decision to reraise him?
AB: This is certainly a guy who reraises me quite often. Ordinarily, I would have a pretty simple fold with A-5 from out of position, especially given that I raised under the gun and he’s three-betting me. Generally you would think, “Well, I’m raising under the gun, I look strong, so if he’s three-betting me, he looks even stronger, so I should be folding some pretty good hands.” Of course, if he’s a good player, he probably realizes that. He is capable of three-bet bluffing or three-betting light in the situation. In order to combat that, I do need to be four-betting with good hands and also as bluffs. I think that A-5 is one of the best hands to four-bet bluff him with. With other hands I might have, like pocket nines, I think that is a lot more questionable of a hand to four-bet bluff with, because it’s almost too strong of a hand to turn into a bluff. With a hand like that, it’s kind of like overplaying it, and it’s not going to have very good equity against the range of hands he’s going to continue with, whereas when I have a suited ace, a couple of things happen. One of them is that I have an ace in my hand which makes it less likely that he’s three-betting me with a premium hand, so I think that my bluff is going to succeed a little bit more often. The other thing is that if I do happen to get action from a big pair like kings or queens, my having a live ace does a lot to improve my equity, whereas if I had pocket nines, I’m in atrocious shape against a big pair. So, if he does have one of the stronger hands he could have, I think that my A-5 has more value.
And the final thing is thinking about how well my hand is going to play post-flop. As you can see, he calls me here, so it’s not like my hand is a total bluff. It’s more of a semi-bluff. If I thought that he was only going to five-bet or fold and he was never going to call, then it wouldn’t really matter which hands I chose to four-bet with. I would do it with my best hands then with whatever because I would fold if he five-bet. If it’s a possibility that he’s going to call, I have to think about how well my hand will play after the flop, and since I’m going to continue to try to represent a big pair, I want a hand like A-5 suited, where if I happen to flop a flush draw, I can represent my big pair and keep betting. If I do happen to get action, I still have equity because I have a flush draw. If I had done this with A-J suited and make multi-barrel bluffs, I probably have very little equity the times I get looked up. I am kind of just thinking about what I’m going to want to do in the hand post-flop, and of the hands that I could bluff with, this is one gives me some of the best post-flop options.
Flop Action: The flop comes A
Q
6
. Brokos checks, and Villain checks. The pot remains $566.
KA: Why did you decide to check the flop?
AB: I think that betting would over-represent my hand. I’ve already represented a ton of strength by four-betting him, and I think if I now bet with an ace on the flop, he might raise. I don’t think my hand is strong enough to get all of the money in on the flop. I think by checking, I can play some pot-control, hopefully, and if my opponent does happen to have a hand like pocket kings or a pair of jacks, I might be able to get one bet from him later, but I’m not going to go for three streets of value, so it’s not like I need to start building a pot right away. It may end up inducing some bluffs from him by doing this. He might decide that I have a pair of kings or jacks and he’s going to try to bluff me off of it. I certainly would be checking here with some hands like that, so I think checking with an ace here helps balance my range so that my opponents can’t just take me off my hand whenever I have a pair of kings when an ace flops. So, I do want to be checking sometimes with my aces on this board, also.
KA: Did you expect him to check behind?
AB: I would expect him to check back more often than not. If he bets the flop, he’s either representing a really big hand, and he wants to start building a pot right away, or a bluff. If he bet here, that would have put me in a really tough spot. I think a lot of times, if he’s just calling me preflop, he’s going to have a lot of hands that would want to check this flop also like kings, jacks, or A-J.
Turn Action: The turn is the 2. The board now reads A Q 6 2. Brokos checks, and Villain bets $290. Brokos calls. The pot is now $1,136.
KA: Was it the same kind of thought process on the turn as on the flop?
AB: Yeah, I still don’t think I’m in the position where I could get two streets of value out of this hand, so I just want to see what he does when I check. My hand, at this point, is very much a bluff catcher. In a four-bet pot, flopping top pair with a weak kicker is essentially not worth that much.
KA: What were you thinking when he bet the turn?
AB: My first thought was that I have to call. My second thought was that it doesn’t seem like he has a super-strong hand. I definitely think he could have a hand better than mine. If he had like A-J or a better ace than mine, I think he’d bet it now. The one thing that I noticed that I think is the most important thing about this hand is his bet sizing. If you look at the amount he puts into the pot now, it isn’t that big of a bet. He’s betting barely half the pot. It seems like if he did have a really strong hand like A-Q, pocket queens, or a hand where he was trying to get all the money in, there’s no reason he couldn’t have bet more here. It wouldn’t have looked suspicious if he bet $400 instead of $290. It seemed to me that his bet sizing wasn’t geared toward getting all of the money in by the river, which I think he’d do with a monster hand. It seems like he’s either trying to bluff cheaply or he’s trying to get in a somewhat thinner value-bet with a hand like A-J.
River Action: The river is the 4. The board now reads A Q 6 2 4. Brokos checks, and Villain goes all in for $1,801. Brokos calls $1,442.50 and is all in.
KA: Was it his bet sizing that made you want to call the all in?
AB: Yes. I just don’t think he’s telling a consistent story on the turn and the river. On the river, now, all of a sudden he wants me to believe that he does have a monster hand and he wants to put all of the money in, so much so that he’s willing to bet more than the pot. So, on the river, all of a sudden he’s saying, “I want to play a huge pot,” and that’s not at all what he was saying on the turn. That’s not what he said on the flop, either, but he can afford not to say it on one of the two early streets. Either the 4 improves him with a set or he has 5-3, which isn’t really plausible, or I was right, and he was bluffing the turn and decided the best option on the river was to bluff again by making a huge shove.
Outcome: Villain shows 9 8 for ace-high. Brokos shows A 5 for a pair of aces. Brokos wins the pot off $4,021 after $3 rake.
KA: You had to make a difficult decision on the river. Looking back, do you think you would have played it differently?
AB: I don’t think I would have played it differently. If he would have played it a little differently and made a better-sized turn bet, he probably would have successfully bluffed me off my hand on the river with a shove. It’s not really that I’m in fantastic shape here with my A-5, and you’re not normally going to be in a four-bet pot with it. The four-bet play preflop is more of a defensive play. Certainly, four-betting A-5 is not the way you would ideally play that hand in vacuum, but when you are against a really tricky player who would three-bet bluff you, it’s kind of a defensive thing that you have to do sometimes. When you do it, you end up putting yourself in some pretty tricky situations. Overall, I don’t think this is a very good spot for me to be in, and I’m going to have a lot of difficult decisions, like I did here, but it’s kind of something that you have to do. I take a difficult situation here, but I avoid difficult situations later because he’s not able to three-bet bluff me much when I have more vulnerable hands like pocket nines and pocket tens three-bet out of position.
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