I was recently in Los Angeles for a couple of days prior to a marathon trip that will see me travel to Manila, Philippines, Barcelona, Spain, London, England, for two events, and then back to Las Vegas. My purpose for being in L.A. was to shoot some live footage for an upcoming online educational program that I'm very excited about. I had a bunch of my friends come out to join me, including players like Paul Wasicka and Kirk Morrison, and other professional players you may not know by name.
The goal was to set up a game with a group of players with various skill levels. So, while we had some top-notch pros, we also had some beginning players, along with several intermediate players. The stakes were small, but since the purpose of this game was purely educational, all of the players involved took it very seriously. After about eight hours of shooting a $1-$2 cash game, we ended up with some truly amazing hands that I'll be able to dissect later on. In my opinion, there is no better way to teach poker than to look at real examples and analyze the play of all of the participants in the hand. The following hand is a great example of how much there is to learn from just one hand of poker:
The blinds were $1-$2 and "Al Smooth," a noted Internet player from the Full Contact Poker forums, limped in from first position. Another player limped in, and our resident amateur made it $4, raising the minimum. Now, that play right there is one that I simply would never recommend! In the next seat, Ted Park, a player who's cashed in the main event at the
World Series of Poker two years in a row, made it $16.
Everyone else folded to me in the big blind, where I found K-K. Everyone at the table had $1,000 in front of him, so if I were to play a big pot in this situation, it's likely that the only hand I'd be playing against was the one hand that could beat me - pocket aces. In fact, I was genuinely worried about Ted having precisely that hand, based on his raise size. Making it just $16, it was clear that he was looking to get some action. I believed that if he wanted everyone out, he would have made it something like $20-$24.
K-K is too strong a hand to just fold, obviously, so I decided to call the bet and see what developed. Al Smooth also called, as did the other limper, my golf caddie, an aspiring player named Josh Armstrong. Our resident amateur who made the initial raise folded.
The flop came 9
8
7
. That's a terrible flop for my hand, especially when out of position and against two limpers who called a raise. I decided to check, as did both limpers. Ted bet $75, and now I was in the squeeze position. I decided to call, with the intention of folding if one of the limpers check-raised. After my call, though, both players folded, and Ted and I were heads up.
The turn card was the Q
, another seemingly bad card for me, as now I couldn't beat A-A or Q-Q. I checked once again, and this time Ted bet $200. At this point, I looked over at him and said, "I think you've got aces over there, Ted." I was quite certain that the coordinated 9-8-7 board didn't help him, so my decision now became rather complex.
Since my hand was so well-disguised, it looked as though I easily could have a strong drawing hand in this situation. What I really had, in fact, was a strong pair in the hole that could be good if Ted was pushing J-J at me. Since I'd played the hand so meekly, I didn't think I could just check-fold on the turn; however, I needed a plan for the river just in case a scary card hit. Now, since I was playing my hand like a draw, what would I do if the drawing hand filled? After some thought, I decided that I'd approach the hand in the following manner: If a straight or flush card hit the river, I'd bet big, hoping to get Ted to lay down aces. If no draw hit, I would check my K-K, hoping they were good. If Ted bet the river, I'd then re-evaluate, but likely would have to fold to a large bet and call a smaller bet.
The river card was a king! Now, that wasn't a card I was expecting to see at all. Now my dilemma was totally different: Should I check, hoping to get two bets in, or should I just make a big bet myself since it might look like a bluff?
I finally decided that a check-raise may not get called by Ted even if he did have A-A, so I went ahead and bet $450. Ted started talking: "I don't think you have king-nine. I think you have king-ten of clubs and hit the king. I call." I showed Ted the K-K, and he turned over, you guessed it, pocket aces.
Deep-stack cash-game poker plays so much differently than a game with short buy-ins, and this is a perfect example of that. Imagine that both Ted and I had about $80 in front of us instead of the $1,000. In that case, we'd already have been all in preflop. That aspect of poker is one that I wouldn't exactly call "beautiful." It's necessary late in poker tournaments, of course, but it isn't a great test of skill, as cash games are. Learning how to play these types of hands with deep stacks will help your game immensely, and with this new training program that I'm working on, the focus will be on playing these types of marginal hands after the flop. With all of the variables present in it, I could write a 100-page book about this hand alone!
