Winning Poker Tournaments III – Hand No. 21

Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time Volume III by Jon “PearlJammer” Turner, Eric “Rizen” Lynch, Jon “Apestyles” Van Fleet, and yours truly, analyzes 50 online poker hands. In Volume III, PearlJammer, Rizen, and Apestyles analyze the same hands and then I give a summary of lessons learned at the end of the hand. This article looks at hand No. 21.

Seat 1: 167,839
Seat 2: 60,388
Seat 3: 271,395
Seat 4: 126,676 Hero
Seat 5: 76,950
Seat 6: 362,216 Button
Seat 7: 112,701 Small Blind
Seat 8: 420,222 Big Blind

2,500-5,000 Blinds (500 Ante)
Setup: This is a $5.50 freezeout with over 3,000 entrants. There are about 60 players remaining. You have been playing solid tight-aggressive poker, stealing the blinds frequently from late position.

Preflop A 10 (pot 11,500): You raise to 15,000. Seat 7 calls in the small blind (SB).
Flop A 5 2 (pot 39,000): Seat 7 pushes all-in.

What do you do?

PearlJammer

A-10 offsuit is certainly a strong enough hand to open in the hijack with 25 big blinds (BB), but by raising three times the BB, I unnecessarily inflate the pot and lose too many chips when I get three-bet preflop. In this hand, Seat 7 flat calls from the SB, and I flop top pair on a rather dry board. With 39,000 in the pot, my opponent leads out by going all-in for more than double the pot! This sort of play is rarely seen in a high buy-in tournament, but is not that unusual for a $5 buy-in.

If there were a flush draw or open-ended straight draw on the board that Seat 7 could reasonably have, this would certainly be a call, as he would show up with those hands too often for me to fold. However, on this dry board, my opponent’s range should be any ace, perhaps a set or two pair, or sometimes even “bluffs,” like a weirdly played pocket pair or second pair.

Out of these hands, all I beat are the aces with weaker kickers than mine and the bluffs. Even so, I would have a hard time folding top pair with a reasonable kicker on this flop, as I do not expect my opponent to make this play with the top end of his range. I expect he would check with A-K, A-Q, or a set, looking to trap and at least get a continuation bet (c-bet) out of me. He likely would have three-bet with A-K or A-Q preflop; however, in a low buy-in tournament, many people will flat call with these hands in spots where a three-bet or reshove should be automatic. I expect he will show up with A-J thru A-7 the majority of the time, but because this play is so unorthodox and opponents in low buy-in tournaments often make outrageous plays, he could just as easily show up with a strangely played A-K or a horrendously played Q-Q.

Although it is a rare spot, when an opponent leads out with an overbet against me, I like to think of what I would have done if I had made a standard c-bet and then he had made the move. If the answer is call, as it would be in this case (albeit a close decision), then I will make the call. Therefore, I make a somewhat crying call.

Rizen

This is a really precarious position. On one hand, I have top pair, and if Seat 7 really liked his hand that much, wouldn’t he check-raise instead of leading out? Also, if he really liked his hand, wouldn’t he have bet an amount I am likely to call instead of nearly three times the pot? On the other hand, I still have approximately 20 BBs, and if I lose, I will be left with two, making calling and losing a catastrophic event.

Most of the time, players who make this kind of play are doing it as some type of semibluff or with a weak made hand. On this board, I think a likely range could be pocket fours or threes, or even A-4 or A-3. I just have a really hard time thinking he could be playing a hand like fives or deuces (now sets). Also, most aces with bigger kickers than mine would have reraised preflop. I would call his all-in and expect to be ahead most of the time.

Apestyles

With effective stacks of 25 BBs, raising three times the big blind preflop is a bit of an overbet. I’d raise to no more than 2.3 times the BB. With less than 30 BB stacks, I don’t often raise much more than the minimum unless the table is extremely loose preflop.

On the flop, it’s hard to put Seat 7 on a range since he shouldn’t be playing any hand this way. How can I figure out my opponent’s thinking if he isn’t thinking? My main argument for folding is that there aren’t any real draws, but I’d still click the call button. Even inexperienced opponents usually check their strongest hands on this sort of a board, since the preflop raiser will usually make a c-bet. That being said, he may not be familiar with the concept of c-betting! He could have a set and think, “I hope my opponent has an ace. I’m all-in.”

If I were forced to pick a specific hand for the villain to have in this spot, I would guess he has treys or fours. But even then, why wouldn’t he check-raise those hands? In the absence of any other information, I prefer a call for a number of reasons: I am in late position so hand ranges are wide, most players would reraise their strong aces, and inexperienced players usually make this type of bet when they want their opponent to fold — not with the top of their range. I think it’s better to assume my opponent doesn’t have the goods here since there are more hand combinations that I beat than hands that I don’t. After all, it’s hard to hit a flop!

Matthew

One advantage amateurs do have is that sometimes their unorthodox play is very hard to read. This can lead to good players making mistakes when playing against them. I think that the hero is going to pretty much get it all-in all the time on this flop no matter what, but you can see how difficult it is to put the villain on a hand. The villain had A-J. ♠

Matthew is the owner of Dimat Enterprises, “Publishing Today’s Best Poker Books”. Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time Volume III is available at pokerbooks.InternetTexasHoldem.com in both print and e-book format. You may also try our new iPad app for free, Poker Coach Pro, based on content from the Winning Poker Tournament series.