Final-Table Takedown -- Faraz Jaka

Faraz “The-Toilet” Jaka has won more than $1 million in online tournaments over the past three years. At the 2009 World Series of Poker, he had four cashes, including a third-place finish in the $5,000 six-handed no-limit hold’em event, followed closely by a second-place finish in the Bellagio Cup V championship event, for $774,870. Jaka, 23, primarily has been traveling around Europe since finishing college at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, where he studied economics and business management. He hasn’t had a home away from the road for nearly two years, but he plans to settle down in Chicago before year’s end.

Event: 2009 Bellagio Cup V
Players in the Event: 268
First Prize: $1,187,670
Buy-in: $15,000
Finish: Second

Hand
Stacks: Faraz Jaka – 7,085,000 Alexandre Gomes – 9,000,000
Blinds: 80,000-160,000
Antes: 15,000
Players Remaining: 2

Key Concepts: Betting for value; metagame history versus an opponent; an opponent’s hand ranges; bet-sizing.

Faraz Jaka raises from the button to 405,000 with the A Q.

Craig Tapscott: How do you choose your preflop raise size?

Faraz Jaka: Well, here I made a fairly standard raise of two and a half times the big blind. I raise anywhere from two to three times the big blind, generally switching it up at random. There are also times that I’ll pick a specific amount because of what I showed down the last time I raised that amount. I try to predict how an opponent might interpret the strength of that raise size; it’s kind of a leveling thing. I also vary it based on how often my opponents are flatting [flat-calling] my raises and how well they play post-flop.

Gomes calls from the big blind.

CT: The match had been very aggressive between the two of you. What would you have done with A-Q if he had three-bet you?

FJ: If Gomes three-bet me preflop, it would be a very good spot to four-bet jam. That’s because 44 big blinds could be a lot in certain full-ring situations, but the fact that we were heads up and Gomes’ three-bet frequency was getting higher as the tournament progressed, it would make this a pretty easy spot to shove and potentially get called by an A-J type of hand. A lot of players might just flat hands like A-J and A-10 here, but Gomes has played with me online a fair amount and has seen that my style is very capable of four-bet jamming hands that can be beat by A-10 and A-J.

Flop: A J 6 (pot: 840,000)
Gomes checks.
Jaka bets 475,000.

CT: You’ve got action.

FJ: Well, I expected my c-bet [continuation-bet] to get action from any ace, any jack, and any flush draw 100 percent of the time. He would probably just check-call these hands for pot control.

CT: Could he check-raise a flush draw here?

FJ: This shallow-stacked, Gomes probably wouldn’t check-raise the flush draw. There’s a good chance that I could have an ace and shove over the top, leaving him to call an all-in bet with only nine outs.

CT: I know that you’re a very meticulous player. Let’s put him on a range of hands preflop.

FJ: It’s very possible that he could slow-play A-A preflop. Since I have an ace and one is on the board, mathematically, it’s very unlikely, of course. Since he already had three-bet me many times and I had gotten away with four-betting him twice in the recent past, I think he would be more likely to fast-play this hand preflop, because I would give action with a pretty wide range.

A-J is another hand that I have to include in his range, but it isn’t as likely due to the fact that I think he would three-bet it for value due to our recent history.

Pocket sixes and A-6 are the two hands I was most worried about. He could easily flat with both of these hands. I would expect him to play these hands fast due to the board texture and the fact that I would stack off a lot if I had a big ace. Also, we had tangoed a bit by this point, so I think we both expected stacks to get in quite light, which is all the more reason for him to play two pair or a set fast.

Gomes calls.

FJ: Once he flats, I eliminate A-6, A-J, and 6-6 from his range. But I could still see him slow-playing A-A.

Turn: 2 (pot: 1,790,000)

CT: Is this a blank in your mind?

FJ: This is definitely a card that he could have to go along with his ace. A lot of players might fold A-2 offsuit preflop, but flat A-2 suited in this heads-up situation. But I got the vibe that Gomes was flatting a bit wider from the big blind. Even with this being a scare card for my hand, there were still tons of hands he could have that I was far ahead of.

Jaka bets 900,000.

CT: That seems like a small bet if it’s for value.

FJ: Yes. I actually made a small mistake at this point. There was 1,790,000 in the pot and my bet was just barely over 50 percent of it. With this board and the fact that he would not fold an ace, I definitely should have bet closer to 65 percent of the pot. Then, he would have worse odds calling with a flush draw and I could build a bigger pot to value-bet the river (if he was calling me down with a weak ace). It wasn’t a huge mistake, but it did keep me from maximizing chips on the hand.

Gomes calls, and then checks dark.

CT: Explain the strategy, if any, of players who do this on occasion.

FJ: It’s usually a sign of weakness. A lot of players will do this to try to intimidate the other player out of value-betting too thin. I personally don’t think this is a good thing to do against strong opponents. You need to keep all of your options available, just in case the right river card comes for you to make a move. The two times that I think checking dark is beneficial are:

1. Against very weak opponents (when you can check dark to keep them from value-betting and it will work)
2. As reverse psychology against a thinking player; for example, if Gomes did this with a flush draw and hit the flush on the river. In that case, I might value-bet my top pair/top kicker and even call his river shove, thinking that he never would have checked dark with a flush draw.

River: 3 (pot: 3,590,000)

FJ: The 3 could be in his range as an offsuit hand because he was flatting wider, but there were still a lot of aces and maybe even jacks that I was beating that could pay me off.

Jaka bets 2,000,000.

FJ: I bet 56 percent of the pot. I considered betting a little bigger. I don’t think he’s expecting me to triple-barrel on an ace-high board too often. Missing out on an extra 500,000 that I could have bet on the river would not be a big deal, but securing the 2,000,000 hit to his stack would be very substantial.

Gomes calls, and mucks when Jaka flips over the A-Q. Jaka wins the pot of 7,590,000.