Hand 2 Hand Combat -- Ben Wilinofsky

Craig Tapscott: We’re pretty deep in a PokerStars Sunday major tournament. Has this been an active table?

Ben Wilinofsky: No, not really. The table had played pretty tight up until this point. At this stage, with about 200 players remaining, I felt like people would be protecting their tournament lives pretty carefully.

NeverScaredB raises to 12,345 from the hijack position (two spots before the button) with the Q 7. Villain calls from the big blind.

CT: What’s with this bet-sizing? It’s almost a min-raise. And what are you trying to accomplish with such a speculative hand?

BW: I chose this smallish raise size because I felt like people would be making mistakes by playing too tight preflop and post-flop. I don’t think I’m getting flatted [flat-called] a whole lot more often with this small raise size than with a larger one, and it leaves more room for me to make plays on multiple streets post-flop, which is good with a hand like Q-7, as you’re not often going to be trying to get to showdown with it.

CT: And if you get raised or flatted?

BW: The times I get played back at (either three-bet or flatted in multiple spots and forced to check-fold a flop), I lose less money, so the raise will be less costly when I don’t win the pot.

Flop: Q 8 5 (pot: 33,090)

BW: I think the flop is probably the simplest street. I have top pair and don’t expect Villain to fold a pair to a bet, and he may call with some marginal draws. Without many reads on him, getting check-raised would suck, but I think that it happens rarely enough (because, as I said earlier, people are protecting their chip stacks, for the most part, at this stage of the tournament) that it’s not a major concern. We’re trying to get value out of our hand.

Villain checks. NeverScaredB bets 18,500. Villain calls.

Turn: 6 (pot: 70,090)

CT: I would think that card may have complicated things a bit.

BW: You’re right. The turn is where things got very, very interesting. The card obviously improved my hand significantly, but it also improved a lot of hands that my opponent could have called the flop with.

CT: Like what?

BW: Hands like 7-6, 8-7, 9-8, 7-5, and 6-4 all improved enough to potentially either call or semibluff check-raise the turn. The problem is that hands like 8-6, 6-5, and 9-7 also improved enough to do so, and I’m behind those hands. Also, Villain could very easily have a better pair of queens. I think the decision to bet or check is one of the closest I have faced in a long time.

CT: What was the verdict?

BW: In the end, I settled on betting the turn.

CT: Why?

BW: The chief reason for my decision was that a lot of the hands that improved to a pair and a draw would pay off a turn bet, but might not pay off a river bet on lots of rivers (a jack, a king, or an ace). There are a few other good reasons for it, though. If Villain calls, there is a decent number of river cards (an ace, a spade, and complete bricks like a 3 and a deuce) that I think I can use to reasonably turn my pair of queens into a bluff to fold his better queens, since I think he rarely has better than one pair if he just calls the turn.

CT: Now weigh the cons.

BW: Well, the potential downside to betting the turn comes when we get check-raised. We probably have enough equity against his range of non-straight hands, since a queen, 7, 9, and 4 are almost always good (if he shows up with queens up after a check-raise, except maybe very occasionally Q-8 suited, I would be shocked). Also, he may occasionally be check-raise semi-bluffing with a pair plus a draw, although I think this would be significantly bad, in most cases, because he rarely gets called by worse hands and rarely folds better ones. The exception is when he has a pair, a straight draw, and a turned flush draw.

CT: So, when does the application of pot control come into play?

BW: The trade-offs for controlling the pot are the inverse of the reasons why I chose to bet. If I checked behind on the turn to control the size of the pot, I would be protecting my stack and lowering my variance with a good-sized stack deep in a soft tournament. The trade-off is that I may miss value from some of the hands I listed above. I also probably cost myself the ability to bluff him off marginal queens on the river.

CT: If you bet the turn and have to call after turning a draw yourself, is it really a +EV [positive expected value] situation?

BW: When we do bet and call the turn, we jeopardize a good stack deep in a soft tournament when we could potentially chip up against less resistance in other spots. While I don’t relish that opportunity cost in particular, I also realize that if I do play for stacks here, there’s a significant chance that I will win a huge pot, which gives me even more chance to impose my will upon the rest of the table.

Villain checks. NeverScaredB bets 47,500. Villain moves all in, having NeverScaredB covered.

CT: That can’t have felt good.

BW: No. The first thing I did on the turn after getting check-raised was throw up everywhere.

CT: (Laughing) Come on. You felt that sick?

BW: It’s just a bit of a gross spot. While I think the bet and call is the most +EV line here, I think a large portion of that EV comes from the times when I bet and Villain flats [flat-calls]. The times when I bet and Villain check-raises, I have a thin +EV call, but I would much rather have him flat.

NeverScaredB calls 187,553 and is all in. Villain flips over the 6 5, for bottom two pair.

BW: This is pretty close to the best-case scenario for me, since I will win the pot with a queen, a 7, a 4, a 9, or an 8. I had about 36 percent equity going to the river, which, given the price I was being laid on the turn, is a pretty clear call.

CT: For those players who might not understand, please explain what you mean by “given the price.”

BW: What I mean is that I have to put in 187,553 to win a pot of 540,196, meaning I contribute about 34 percent of the pot to win about 36 percent of the time. So, I’m going to be profiting to the tune of 2 percent of the pot in the long run, which might not sound like much, but when the pot is 90 big blinds, that’s a pretty significant gain.

River: J (pot: 540,196)
Villain wins the pot of 540,196.

Canadian native Ben Wilinofsky graduated with an honours degree in business administration this year from the Richard Ivey School of Business. He recently took second place in the $750K event on Full Tilt Poker for almost $82,900, had a $42,000 victory in a PokerStars $100 rebuy event, and has 12 five-figure tournament cashes so far this year.