Hand 2 Hand Combat -- Greg Kaplan

Event: PokerStars six-max no-limit hold’em cash game
Stacks: Greg “kapie123” Kaplan – $883; “Innerspy” – $900
Blinds: $2-$4
Players at the Table: 5

Greg Kaplan: Innerspy is a European professional who is a very solid, consistent winner in the medium-stakes no-limit hold’em games. He plays a good loose-aggressive style. At one point, he held the record for the most hands played in 24 hours, and he plays 20-plus tables at a time.

Craig Tapscott: How does he perceive you?

GK: Innerspy sees me as a tight-aggressive, profitable regular in the game, and definitely on the nitty side. This is the most important part of the dynamics in the hand.

Innerspy raises to $16 from under the gun.

GK: I look down at the J 6 in the small blind, which is obviously not a strong enough hand with which to call out of position, but it then occurs to me how good a spot this might be to begin a complex multi-street bluff.

CT: So, what’s his under-the-gun hand range, according to your tracker stats?

GK: Well, it includes something in the neighborhood of 2-2+, A-2+ suited, K-9+ suited, Q-9+ suited, J-9+ suited, 10-9 suited, 9-8 suited, 8-7 suited, 7-6 suited, 6-5 suited, 5-4 suited, A-10+ offsuit, K-J+ offsuit, and Q-J offsuit. Obviously, there will be some hands that he may like better than others, or he may be playing tighter or looser than usual, given certain table conditions, and so on.

CT: Obviously, if you play this hand against the under-the-gun raiser, it’s because of your perceived image.

GK: Of course. I will get lots of respect based on his opening position and my position in the small blind. Think about your own game; when was the last time that you three-bet the under-the-gun raiser light from the small blind or big blind? With hands other than Q-Q+ and maybe A-K — medium-strength hands like 10-10, J-J, A-Q, K-Q, Q-J, 5-5, and so on — most people like to just call in this spot preflop.

CT: And you’re a perceived nit?

GK: Yes. And if a nit three-bets your under-the-gun raise from the small blind, you are going to snap-fold the vast majority of the hands with which you opened. Nits don’t bluff that often, and this is about as unlikely a spot to bluff as any. And a good, thinking player is always trying to find spots where his opponent’s opinion of his range is not congruent with what his range actually is.

CT: But you’re more than 200 big blinds deep. Doesn’t that come into play when the under-the-gun raiser is considering his next move?

GK: His hand has to be pretty damn strong to play for stacks this deep. We can use this to our advantage by putting a tremendous amount of pressure on the non-nut part of his range. Obviously, he will never fold the flop with sets, straights, and probably even two pair, since we are going to have an overpair like aces the majority of the time. So, we should just relentlessly attack against the non-premium parts of his range.

Kapie123 reraises to $60.

CT: Do you have fold-to-three-bet stats on Innerspy?

GK: His fold-to-three-bet number is approximately 72 percent, but that statistic is derived mainly from stacks of 100 big blinds. I believe that a good player will be flat-calling a bit wider when we’re this deep-stacked and he’s in position.

Innerspy calls.
Flop: 6 4 2 (pot: $124)

CT: Have you refined his calling range?

GK: I think it is something like middle suited connectors (more likely to be “live” than Q-J suited, for example), some pairs with which he’s set-mining, A-K, and some larger pairs with which he’s hoping to get to a cheap showdown. This player is definitely fine with getting it all in preflop lighter than most in $2-$4 no-limit, so I can be fairly confident that he doesn’t have A-A or K-K that often. Against the range of 2-2 to K-K, A-K, and 5-4 suited to 9-8 suited, I am approximately 39 percent on the flop.

Kapie123 bets $95.

GK: So, I begin firing barrels with no real intention of stopping. When I fire one barrel here, I’m hoping the board runs out in a manner that I can continue barreling him off his non-nut hands. The 6 in my hand isn’t really relevant, since this hand will so infrequently go to showdown. All that a pair really does for me here is add a few outs that I could hit to crack a hand like Q-Q.

Innerspy calls.

CT: And with that call, you can further refine his range.

GK: Right. When he calls this flop, I think his range is now reduced to 10-10, J-J, Q-Q, 5-4 suited, 6-5 suited, 8-7 suited, and maybe the A K. Most of the time, he will raise or get it in with those suited hands that have a big combo draw. I also think that if he had 2-2, 4-4, or 6-6, he would start raising right here on the flop to try to get me to put my money in with A-A on what appears to be a pretty safe low board. I think the majority of his range will be 10-10 to Q-Q that stubbornly (and correctly) isn’t convinced enough that I have the nuts to fold such a big hand.

Turn: 4 (pot: $314)

CT: Does the board pairing slow you down in any way?

GK: Of all the hands with which I figure him to be continuing on the flop, the 4 improves only one, and that is 5-4 suited. The board pairing is actually not that bad if he has something like the 8 7, since I’m so unlikely to have a full house on this board after three-betting preflop. So, with a turn bet here, I can be reasonably sure that he’s going to continue with only 5-4 suited, 2-2, 4-4, 6-6, and maybe J-J, Q-Q, or K-K, hands that are still not convinced that I have the nuts. I still think it is most likely that he has a hand like Q-Q here, so I decide to barrel again, leaving at least a two-thirds-pot bet for the river if I need to fire one more shell.

Kapie123 bets $220. Innerspy calls.
River: 9 (pot: $754)
Kapie123 moves all in for $508.

CT: Obviously, you’re sticking to your read.

GK: Well, I now figure that he has pretty much Q-Q exactly. The question is whether or not he will fold it. After I move all in, he is getting about 2.25-1 on a call, so he has to be good about 30 percent of the time to break even. But, Q-Q is just a bluff catcher here, since it is almost impossible for me to be value-shoving worse hands. How often do you see nits three-barreling when 200 big blinds deep and out of position against solid regulars? It doesn’t happen too often. So, I believe that he thinks my bluff frequency is very low, and will likely finally believe that I have aces and will muck his overpair.

Innerspy folds. Kapie123 wins the $754 pot.

CT: I doubt that you make this move against a megafish who can’t find a fold, ever.

GK: I would never make this play against a player who I thought was anything short of excellent. It’s a suicide bluff against most average opponents.
Innerspy has my utmost respect, and that’s the only reason I even considered making such a deep-thinking play against him in the first place.

Greg Kaplan earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business-marketing from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University in 2009. He’s played more than 4 million hands of small- and medium-stakes no-limit hold’em. He achieved SuperNova Elite status on PokerStars in 2009. He plans to get an MBA in finance in the next year or so. He offers both private and group coaching, and can be reached at [email protected] for details.