Card Player Pro

Recently, I’ve done several Card Player Pro member review videos, helping our users by critiquing their play in big online tournaments. In this column, I’m going to break down what I believe was one of the more challenging spots from the tournament review of Card Player Pro member Younggun_AK. I’ll break it down street by street.

The action starts with the player under the gun (UTG) raising to 600. Everyone folds to Younggun_AK in the hijack position, and he calls with the A Q; the rest of the players fold.

The preflop call is close, in my opinion. If UTG is an aggressive player, the call seems standard, but against a more tight player, I prefer a fold. I would always call with A-Q suited here, but offsuit is borderline. However, flatting [flat-calling] here is never a major leak.

The flop is the A J 8, giving Younggun top pair with a queen kicker. UTG bets 650, Younggun calls.
Hmm. The bet-sizing by UTG is definitely a little suspect, considering how small it is, but he’s very often going to be continuation-betting this flop, and the sizing isn’t that crazy. Clearly, the correct play is to call, since we never get value from any worse hands by raising, and all better hands get more chips in with us. I think this is a spot where less experienced players will make the mistake of raising, figuring, “I’ve got top pair, so let’s play a big pot!” But we must remember that building a pot with top pair is good when worse hands will put more money in the pot. Here, I don’t see that happening.

Turn: 8
UTG checks, Younggun checks.

I like Younggun’s check here a lot. When we think about UTG’s probable range, it’s mostly pairs and large aces. The pairs are more likely to pay off one more street of value (or attempt some strange bluff) if we check back on the turn, and the other aces are either ahead of us or in a tie with us, unless he’s raised with A-10 from under the gun, which is not likely. Again, this is a spot where I think players don’t often exercise pot control when they should, and I’m glad to see that Younggun was able to do so.

River: K
UTG bets 1,500, Younggun calls.

The river is a very difficult situation, in my opinion. When we think about his preflop range, it’s already pretty tight, and most everything in it either beats us or checks the river. A-J, A-K, J-J, K-K, A-A, and 8-8 all beat us, and A-Q ties us. Q-Q, 10-10, and 9-9 will mostly be checking that river, since they expect to get called, and they have showdown value. When I watched the hand originally, I didn’t think through it as thoroughly, but in reviewing it now, I’m pretty sure that we have to fold here, assuming that UTG is at least moderately sensible. It’s a situation in which our hand appears stronger than it actually is, because UTG will already have such a small range, simply from the preflop action (unless he’s a huge loose-aggressive player).

Result: UTG shows J-J for a full house, Younggun_AK mucks.

So, as we see here, even though we lose to only a few hands, his range to bet the river is also very narrow, and is almost always for value. It’s a tough spot, and kudos to Younggun for not going broke in a spot in which other players may have.

To watch Tony Dunst comment on and play this hand, point your browser to Card Player Pro, the complete online poker training site, at www.CardPlayer.com/link/TonyD-2.