Card Player Pro

Game: $109 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament
Opponent: Solid tournament pro in the big blind
Stacks: Mine: 2,830; His: 3,000
My Cards: A 10
My Position: Button

It’s a bad feeling, knowing that you got bluffed — but it’s an even worse feeling to find out that your opponent accidentally bluffed you! In a recent training video that I produced for Card Player Pro, I reviewed an interesting hand that I played against a tough tournament opponent — which shows the unique “accidental bluff” in action.

In a $109 buy-in tournament online, everyone folded around to me on the button, and I opened for 90 with the A 10; the blinds were 15-30. The big blind, a solid tournament professional, called the raise, and we took a flop heads up.

The flop came 4 4 2. My opponent checked, I bet 125 into a pot of 195, and my opponent called.

The turn brought the A, giving me top pair. My opponent checked again, and I made a value-bet of 335 into a pot of 445; after thinking for a few moments, he called again.

The river was the 10, giving me top two pair. My opponent checked, and I made a value-bet of 735 into the pot of 1,115. My opponent thought for approximately 20 seconds, and check-raised all in.

To an amateur player, this probably looks like a trivially easy call. We have two pair, and there’s a lot of chips in the pot — so we call, right? Well, it’s not that simple.

When two strong players face off against each other, there’s more going on than meets the eye.

Here, even though I have two pair, my hand is really just a bluff-catcher. It’s nearly impossible for my opponent to check-raise this river with a worse hand for value. With A-K or A-Q, he would have reraised me preflop, and if he has a hand like A-J, A-9, or worse, he is smart enough to realize that check-raising this river “overrepresents” his hand (his raise represents a stronger hand than he actually has), so when I call his check-raise, he’s always beat.

So, if my opponent realizes this, he should check-raise this river only with a hand that’s too weak to call my river bet, or with a hand that beats A-10 (2-2, 4-4, 5-4, A-4, 10-10, or a flush).

Given how rarely people fold top pair, especially in tournaments, I think it’s less likely that he’s trying to bluff me off my hand, and more likely that he actually has trips or better.

So, after going into the tank, I decided to give him credit and fold.

We discussed the hand later, and my opponent actually had the A 9, and had check-raised the river for value!

After discussing the hand with several other top players, we all agreed that his river raise is a mistake, because I’m never calling him with a hand worse than A-9. However, on the flip side, he actually managed to get me to fold the best hand! His accidental bluff worked out perfectly, and he got me to lay down a monster — by mistake.