Hand 2 Hand Combat -- Ben Eliass

Event: Ipoker online six-max cash game
Blinds: $5-$10
Stacks: “BoyWonder” – $1,600; Villain – $1,850

Craig Tapscott: You had just moved up to the $5-$10 stakes when this hand occurred, right?

Ben Eliass: Yes. I had about 20,000 hands of play at this level under my belt, which may sound like a lot, but in online terms, it’s not much at all. It translates to basically a week or two of play.

The action is folded to BoyWonder in the small blind, holding the Q 8.

CT: Did you have any history with the villain?

BE: Usually, I put pros into a multitude of categories, but two primary ones are solid multitabling grinder and high-intensity player. The grinder makes fewer mistakes but is easier to bluff, and the latter may be tougher to handle in certain situations but sometimes tends to over-adjust and over-think. The first one is easier to play against when the ranges are wide and you can use that, and the second makes more mistakes in spots where ranges are narrower. The villain in the big blind was definitely in the first category. Furthermore, I had played with him at $3-$6. My general idea of him was that he was tight and aggressive but fairly straightforward.

BoyWonder raises to $40. Villain calls from the big blind.
Flop: 7 3 2 (pot: $80)
BoyWonder bets $60.

BE: This is an easy continuation-bet for me, and he has a high fold percentage to c-bets.

Villain calls.

CT: OK. Let’s eliminate the hands that you don’t believe he’s holding.

BE: This guy is pretty aggressive. He probably would have raised with any set, as there are draws out there. If anything, another spade might kill his action or not allow him to get max value with a set. I think a flush draw is pretty much impossible, because any flush draw here will probably be either a combo draw (5 4, 6 5) or, much more likely, a flush draw with two overcards, which are hands with which I myself would almost always raise here. I rule out the nut-flush draw completely.

CT: So, define his range.

BE: I give him some type of ace high, a pair of sevens, a medium pair (such as 8-8, 9-9, or 10-10 — hands that play better in a single raised pot and that he almost never three-bets against me preflop), and just in case I’m wrong, some type of float with overcards, but very rarely.

Turn: J (pot: $200)

BE: This is a very good card for me, as it rarely hits his range, and could potentially set me up for a river barrel. He probably has either a 7 or a pair in between jacks and another overcard. It makes it even more difficult for him to call a potential river bet. Naturally, I think I have a fair amount of fold equity by just betting here.

BoyWonder bets $140. Villain calls.
River: K (pot: $480)

CT: He’s thwarted your plans to steal this pot every step of the way. Have you further defined his hand range?

BE: I put him on a medium range — between a pair of sevens and jacks. He is definitely not floating twice with king high, and when he calls the turn, I’m even more sure that he doesn’t just call down two streets with a flush draw, as that is fairly weak, and I give this guy some credit.

BoyWonder bets $300.

CT: So, you’re still trying to sell your story. Explain your river bet-sizing.

BE: The reason I make that small bet is that in this particular spot, a bet of $440 would perhaps, in his eyes, polarize my range to either a flush or air. There are definitely leveling games to be played here. Against some opponents, you might want to bet $440 here when you have A-K, to induce hero calls and prevent the guy from bluffing. Anyway, I thought that bet-sizing would leave my value range wide. I definitely bet hands like K-Q, K-J, A-A, and A-K for value here, along with any set. I feel that this will be the toughest bet size for him to call with his medium-pair hand.

Villain raises to $750.

CT: I don’t think he bought it.

BE: No, and this confuses me completely. Obviously, he’s now completely polarized, as he’s representing only a flush. He’s calling here with anything else, including all sets. Unfortunately, I can’t bluff-catch, because I have only queen high, and my thinking is that he must have turned a pair into a bluff. With my original reads on this opponent, he would almost never bluff in this spot. But in line with my previous reasoning, I believe it to be completely impossible for him to have a flush here, which is his only value-raising range. I remember thinking that he might not even make this raise without the nut flush or at least a big flush, further eliminating flushes from his range.

CT: So, what does he have?

BE: Well, now that I’ve established that he couldn’t have a flush, he must have some type of air. I had another $610 to raise. The amount and pot odds are fairly inconsequential, as he has to fold anything that he has turned into a bluff. I also remember thinking that I hadn’t made any huge moves against this guy, and for me to be bluffing here, it is so far from standard that I more or less can have only the ace-high flush. So, he has to fold anything else.

BoyWonder moves all in. Villain calls, and reveals the 10 9. Villain wins the pot of $3,200.

BE: I couldn’t believe it. I had to go through the hand history again to review the action.

CT: And?

BE: For one thing, I had a general read on this guy. I looked through my database and couldn’t find a spot like this against him that had gone to showdown. So, the read of him never having a flush draw here was just me projecting how I would play the hand. Also, it’s true that when I three-bet that river, I most often have it, and one would argue that he could, and even almost always should, fold his flush. But he doesn’t know that.

CT: It can be difficult to fold that hand.

BE: Right. More than likely, in the heat of the moment, he will want to justify that he cannot fold, just like I was trying to justify that I could bluff. Our most natural inclination, both his and mine, is to win the pot one way or another, and that’s never going to happen by folding. That’s why, when talking about poker in a vacuum and saying that he can never call me here, although it has intelligent reasoning, it doesn’t always apply, because he’s just another human being who has emotions and a limited amount of time to make a decision.

CT: What’s the key pearl of wisdom that you gleaned from this loss?

BE: I learned not to project my own play onto others, and to be able to deviate from early reads based on later actions, even though those actions may not make sense to me. I also realized that as much as I may think I know about somebody else’s game, I probably really don’t, which means that they probably know less about my game than I give them credit for knowing. This means that in a lot of situations, metagame and balancing are overrated.

Ben Eliass is a successful shorthanded no-limit hold’em player who prides himself on taking a very mindful approach to poker. He has made more than a million dollars in shorthanded online cash games in the last three years. He believes that a lack of emotional control will destroy a player’s talent any day. He currently coaches others on how to realize their greatest potential for success in online poker through private sessions, blogs, and videos at Leggopoker.com.