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Unorthodox A-K hands from Poker Night in America

A few weeks ago, I embarked on an East Coast poker trip to the Turning Stone Casino in upstate New York to play on Poker Night in America’s $25-$50 no-limit hold’em cash game. During this trip, I got into two very interesting spots with A-K. The episode will come out on television sometime in 2016, but the full two-day live stream is up on Poker Night in America’s YouTube channel. I will be reviewing every hand that I played on the show in a six part video series titled “Turning Stone” over on CrushLivePoker.com

If you have read my articles here before, you know that my normal cash game is the $5-$10 $1,500 cap at the Commerce Casino, so playing a $25-$50 game was on the larger side for me. If tradition held true, most of the hands in the game would be held with a straddle, making it $25-$50-$100. Not only is the game big, but the players usually only buy in for at maximum $10,000, so the effective stacks are a little more shallow than I am used to. Some players, especially those well versed in limit, only buy in for $5.000, making the game mostly preflop.

You can turn A-K into a bluff after bluff catching if you think there is a chance your opponent made a pair

About twenty minutes into the second day of shooting, I picked up my first playable hand, A K, on the button. Matt Glantz, with a $5,000 stack, opened to $200 at $25-$50, Joe McKeehen called with about $13,000 behind, and Shaun Deeb called in the cutoff, covering everyone. I started the hand with $10,000 and decided to three-bet small—only to $800—wanting Glantz to put in his stack of 50 big blinds. Unfortunately, he folded, as did Mckeehen, but Deeb called. Shaun and I have some recent history together when he knocked me out of the $10,000 pot-limit hold’em tourney at the WSOP this year with A-A vs K-K preflop, a tourney he went on to win. I had never played with him before in cash, but I am pretty sure he knew that this game was on the larger side for me and I knew it was on the smaller side for him.

With the pot being $2,075, the flop came out 10 8 5 and, surprisingly, he led into me for $700. This is very unorthodox, as you almost always see the out of position player in a three-bet pot check to the raiser. But I knew that Deeb did not play by any type of rote playbook. I also thought it would have been way too exploitable to just fold the flop, as I still could have had the best hand against draws and some bluffs, so I called. The turn brought the J and Deeb once again fired, this time for $1,750 into $3,475. The turn definitely was not the best card for me, even though I picked up a gutshot Broadway draw, as the jack could have easily paired him with a hand like Q-J, J-9 or J X. The decision was pretty close, but I was getting 3-1, so I decided to call again, feeling that I may have the best hand still or was drawing with the proper equity. The river came a total blank, a 4 and Deeb took a long time and finally checked.

This is where I had a decision to make. All along, I thought that there was a decent chance that I may have had the best hand with A-K and the four really did not change anything. There was the small possibility that he had a hand like A 4 that rivered a pair, but I thought that he either had turned a jack, had a hand like 10 X or had missed everything. The decision I had to make was whether or not A-K had enough showdown value to check back or should I turn to bet to get him off of a pair.

Against good competition that plays with me a lot at the Commerce, if I called a lead, then called the turn and bet on the river when checked to in this situation, I would very rarely be bluffing. My most probable holdings would be overpairs, but I was not sure if Deeb knew that. This was a game flow issue and, early on in this session, I just got the feeling that Deeb might call me down with a pair, putting me on busted spades. I finally decided to check my hand back after much deliberation and Deeb sheepishly turned over 4 2 for absolutely nothing that rivered a pair. I am still not certain whether or not Deeb would have called a bet at the end with his pair of fours, but it does go to show you that there are times that you can turn A-K, as the nut no pair, into a bluff at the end when you were holding on thinking that it was the best hand.

You can value bet A-K as the nut no pair

Later on in Day 2, I got into another very unusual spot with A-K, strange enough that it left some very experienced players scratching their head when they watched it on the live stream. I had a fairly losing image at that point in the day, as I was down about $7,000 and picked up A K in the cutoff. I raised to $175 with about a $9,000 stack and the button, a middle aged derivatives trader named Richard Anthony, three-bet me to $400. Everyone folded and I decided to just call partly for deception, partly for the faith in my post-flop ability. The board came out 8 4 4, exactly the type of board that I have talked about in previous articles where you have to continue on if you play A-K slowly. I checked, Anthony bet $400, and I quickly called. The turn was the 2 and the action quickly went check, check. At this point, I thought that my hand was good close to 100 percent of the time, as I thought the button would bet again with an overpair. I was really rooting for a total blank ragged card to river so that I could make a thin value bet with A-K to get called by a worse ace-high. Unfortunately, it was not the cleanest river, as the 9 fell, completing the front door spade draw. However, I still decided to bet very tiny for value and led $300 into $1,675. My small bet, however, was met with something I did not anticipate. Anthony thought for a bit and raised to $1,200. This really surprised me, as I never expected to get raised, but rather hero called. Anyway, I took some time with it, realized that the hand made very little sense unless my opponent rivered a flush, called with A-K, and was good.

Some people thought that I made a “blocker bet” at the end of the hand but my intention was to clearly value bet and get called by worse. I was a little taken back by the fact that my opponent raised me but now in retrospect the small sizing at the end obviously induced him to bluff.

The main point here is that you can certainly pick times to value bet A-K no pair for value and get called by worse. The most common of these situations is flatting with A-K preflop, calling a flop bet, then betting the river after the turn is checked through on a wet board that bricks out.

Again, both of these situations will be analyzed on my training site, with real video from the hands over at CrushLivePoker.com. ♠

Follow Bart for daily strategy tips on Twitter @CrushLivePoker and @BartHanson. Check out his poker training site exclusively made for live cash game play at CrushLivePoker.com where he produces weekly podcasts and live training videos.