Book Extract: Latest From Chris Moorman Now AvailableNew Poker Book Available From D&B Poker Publishing |
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Moorman, The Inside Story Of The Most Successful Online Poker Player Of All Time is now available. An extract from the book is available below. You can get your copy from D&B Poker publishing.
Game: Online Tournament $100+$9
Hand: A
7
Position: Button
Players: 9
Blinds/ante: 25/50
PreFlop: Hero is Button with A 7
6 folds, Hero raises to 112, SB folds, BB calls 62
Flop: (249) K 9
2 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets 109, BB raises to 350, Hero calls 241
Turn: (949) Q (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets 493, BB calls 493
River: (1,935) 3
(2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets 1,700 and is all-in, BB folds
This hand is from the early stages of a tournament before antes have come into play. Action folds to me on the button where I have a 53 big blinds stack and make a standard 2.25x open with A 7. The small blind folds and the big blind defends. Even though I have a small sample size on my opponent it appears that they are playing on the looser side having only folded two out of six times to a continuation bet and also perhaps on the aggressive side considering they have also check-raised one of those six flops.
The flop is K 9 2, which is one where I have a decent range equity advantage.
Some of my opponent’s really strong hands, such as A-K, K-K and 9-9, will 3-bet preflop as well as hands such as K-Q suited. They also have a lot of hands that have very low equity on this board and will be forced to fold versus a bet. For this reason I make a value/protection bet of 109 into 249 (around 44% pot). My opponent stays true to his loose-aggressive stats and check-raises the flop to 350. With the nut flush draw it’s a no-brainer decision for me to continue in this hand but one mistake I see a lot of players make here is to shove all-in. If I do this and get called it’s true that, with an overcard to go with my nut flush draw, I’m never in that bad a shape.
However, playing in position it’s far better to call with my hand and have the potential to win the pot on some runouts if I don’t improve. I wouldn’t be 3-betting the flop with any hands I’m continuing with so, although I do have a number of flush draws here, I also have strong made hands such as K-K, 9-9 and K-9 to protect my overall range and strengthen it, given that I also have some weaker gutshot straight draws.
After I make the call on the flop the turn is the Q which brings a second flush draw and my opponent checks. At this point I can either take a free card to try and realize my equity and maybe win at showdown with A-high (admittedly this is unlikely) or start turning my hand into a bluff. This is a close decision and depends on whether I feel the opponent is likely to check-raise the turn when facing a bet. If there is a strong chance they could take this action, betting the turn would be a disaster as I’ll have to fold to the shove and don’t get to realise my equity.
However, on this specific board, I felt this would very rarely happen as I didn’t expect my opponent to check a strong hand on the turn for fear that I had too many hands that would check behind. The main reason is that all my marginal hands, such as Q-J, J-J, 10-10, J-9, 10-9 etc, are going to want to check behind. Even hands as strong as K-J and A-K are going to want to pot-control on this scary turn card in case my opponent was checking the turn with J-10 or Q-K. For these reasons I thought the most likely type of hands my opponent had were gutshots on the flop that now made a pair such as Q-J and Q-10 and I decided to bet the turn with intention of bluffing the river on a brick or value betting if I make my flush.
Once my opponent calls the turn there is 1,935 in the pot with 1,700 in effective stacks behind. The 3 on the river changes nothing and I decided to follow through on my plan to shove a brick river. It’s true my opponent can put me on a missed flush draw here, but a lot of them have showdown value and won’t be ones I choose to bluff with such as 9-x and Q-x hearts. Also, I wouldn’t expect my opponent to think that I will bluff with A-x hearts combinations or open with the lowest suited cards given that there are no antes in the pot preflop to fight for. I still have a ton of value-bets on this board including K-Q, K-9, Q-9 and J-10 (for all of which I can have both offsuit and suited combinations), as well as all sets which will balance out these missed flush draw bluffs and put my opponent in a very tough spot with their bluff-catcher.
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