Online Poker: Play a Hand With Ben 'bfineman' Fineman

Ben “bfineman” Fineman is an online poker pro who has racked up more than $630,000 in Online Player of the Year-qualified winnings since 2007. His biggest-ever score came when he took down a six-handed no-limit hold’em event in the most recent Full Tilt Online Poker Series, netting him an even $300,000. His next-biggest online cash came just a week ago, when he finished as runner-up in the PokerStars Sunday Warmup. He's done quite well for himself in live events, as well, with more than $650,000 in winnings from major live events, including a runner-up finish at a World Series of Poker Circuit event at Caesars Palace this year (worth $258,000), a final table at last year's WSOP ($100,000), and three wins in major tournaments that earned him five-figure paydays.

Card Player got ahold of Fineman to talk about an interesting hand that he played early on in his recent runner-up finish in the Sunday Warmup:

The Hand

Info	PokerStars Sunday Warmup	Blinds: 750-1,500 with a 150 ante
Player	Ben “bfineman” Fineman	Danny “THE__D__RY” Ryan
Stack	102,735	56,200
Hand	8 8	Q 10

The Action

Action folds to THE__D__RY in the cutoff seat, and he raises to 4,025. Bfineman calls on the button, and both blinds fold. The flop comes 9 9 2, and THE__D__RY checks. Bfineman bets 3,600, and THE__D__RY calls. The turn is the 8. THE__D__RY leads out for 9,145, and bfineman calls. The river is the 6, THE__D__RY pushes all in for 39,280, and bfineman calls, having THE__D__RY covered. THE__D__RY shows Q 10 for a bluff, and bfineman takes down the pot with pocket eights for a full house.

The Analysis

Shawn Patrick Green: You have pocket eights on the button, and action folds to Danny “THE__D__RY” Ryan in the cutoff, who makes what seems to be a pretty standard raise, nowadays, of between 2.5-3 times the big blind. First of all, and we’ve been talking about this a lot lately on Card Player, what is the main purpose of the smaller preflop raises?

Ben “bfineman” Fineman: A lot of it is just because deeper in tournaments the average stack size is much smaller than earlier on, so there is a lot less play after the flop, and you want to keep it small for a number of reasons. One of the big reasons is that your C-bet [continuation bet], or if you want to fire a second or third barrel, takes up less of your stack, so you have more wiggle-room to play poker. Also, there’s really not a lot of flop-play, in general. Once you get to a certain point, for the most part, most of the play takes place preflop, where you’ll either open and take down the blinds or you’ll open and fold to a three-bet, or you’ll four-bet or something like that. So, you don’t have to worry as much about giving people the implied odds to see the flop against a hand like A-J or pocket nines or something along those lines, because usually people aren’t calling and seeing multiple streets since the stacks are too small. That sort of dictates keeping it smaller, because you don’t have to make it three times the big blind. I guess, the majority of the time, you’re just looking to steal the blinds, and it saves you chips the few times that people come over the top of you. You can just fold and save those extra chips.

SPG: OK. He ends up making it 4,025, which is about 2.7 times the big blind, and you call on the button with eights. Why not raise with eights, there? Does it turn your eights into a bluff?

BF: The biggest thing to notice about this hand is that both of us are fairly deep. He’s got approximately 38 big blinds, which is somewhere near twice the average stack, maybe, and I have him covered. So, if I’m three-betting here, he’s not really going to call me out of position on my three-bet. So, if I three-bet, one of two things will happen: he’ll either four-bet shove or fold. In both of those cases, my two cards don’t particularly matter, because we’re not really going to see a flop, and in this spot, pocket eights have way too much strength to turn them into an any-two-cards-three-betting spot. And, to be honest, I’d rather three-bet him with 7-2 offsuit than pocket eights here, because, like I said, when you three-bet, given the stack sizes, your cards really don’t matter in this situation.

SPG: So, basically, you’d be gaining value with something like 7-2, but you’d be losing value with something like eights that has more value seeing a flop in this situation?

BF: Basically. I wouldn’t be playing eights for their maximum strength, because we’re deep enough that I have the implied odds to set-mine, if I am playing it for that purpose. But, also, he’s opening from the cutoff, so his range is much wider than pocket eights, so I’m far ahead of his range, and I have position. So, for all of those reasons, that we’re deep enough, that I’m ahead of his range, and that I have position on him, we can play a flop. And that’s pretty rare for a tournament like the Warmup, wherein the average stack is close to something like 15-20 big blinds at this point.

And if I three-bet, I’m put in a completely miserable spot if he four-bet shoves. He’s too deep to do that with any two cards, and we don’t have a ton of history where I’d been three-betting him light at this table in the past. So, I don’t think that he’d view my three-bet as a bluff, necessarily, so it turns the eights into any two cards, really, which is pointless.

SPG: So, you call, and the flop is a rainbow with two nines and a deuce, which has to be a pretty damn good flop for you. What kinds of hands could you have put him on that would have hit that flop?

BF: Short of him raising with any two cards, there isn’t much in his range that hits this flop, especially with the two nines out there making it less likely that he has a 9. So, it really is a perfect flop for me, short of hitting an eight or some huge combo draw. Yeah, I’m pretty happy with it. His range is huge in this spot, because he opened from the cutoff with a big stack, so I’m not eliminating much; he could have A-9 or he could have 9-5 suited. He could be hitting this flop or missing it, but obviously the most likely scenario is that he missed it, which makes my hand best.

SPG: He ends up leading out with a check on that flop, even though he had shown aggression preflop. Does that smell fishy to you, or can you not read into that too much?

BF: Yeah, I thought it was pretty interesting, because most players’ standard line here would be to C-bet the majority of their range. I’m not sure if Danny is familiar with my name at all or recognizes my game, but we have played together a lot. Most good players aren’t flatting [flat-calling] too wide here preflop, they’re either going to three-bet with air or call with mid-pairs just because of the stack-size dynamic. So, I think there’s a pretty strong chance that, if he’s paying attention to this table, like if he doesn’t have a dozen more going at the time, he might put me on pocket sixes, pocket eights, or maybe even flatting him with a big hand.

SPG: So, he ends up checking, and you lead out for 3,600. That’s a really, really small bet; that’s less than one-third of the pot. What is that kind of bet designed to do?

BF: I think that bet will accomplish a lot of the same things as if I bet a more normal bet like half or two-thirds of the pot here, especially because the board is so dry. It’s not like I have to worry about giving him a free card, unless he wants to peel the turn with something like A-Q or A-J, but even then, I’m not too concerned. But the most important thing, because of our stack sizes and the fact that we’re deep, if he wants to check-raise the flop, I’ll have room to call and re-evaluate the turn without necessarily being committed if I put out another bet. If he check-raises the flop because my small bet does look kind of weak, and then he checks the turn again, I can put out a little bet and not be committed if he’s trying something a little crazy and goes all in.

I think it’s more for pot control and to give myself more room to play the turn and river if he raises, or something along those lines.

SPG: He ends up just calling. What does a check-call there indicate?

BF: If he has a hand like A-K or A-Q, there is a lot of value in check-calling, because he does have showdown value with that hand. Obviously, if he bets it, he’s going to get called by just about every better hand, while folding out all worse hands. So, it’s not that unusual for a good player to be check-calling with a hand like A-K or A-Q for value, especially because when he does check-call, it looks really strong, so he can’t expect me to go too crazy trying to bluff him off of it. Or he could be slow-playing a big hand, or it could be that I bet so small that I’m giving him odds to hit an overcard, and he might just be peeling the turn with some kind of Broadway combination, or things like that.

SPG: Considering that your bet was so small, and he is likely to call with something like any two facecards, can you realistically give up if paint hits on the turn?

BF: A lot of it depends upon how he plays it. If the turn is a king, queen, or jack, and he leads out, I’m not too happy about my hand to begin with, given that he check-called the flop, and now there’s something there. But most players don’t float out of position in spots like this. There isn’t really enough room to run triple-barrel bluffs. Adding in the fact that the odds of a scare-card hitting the turn aren’t really that great, I don’t feel too bad giving him a free card [with my small bet], especially considering that there’s a pretty large chance that he’s just going to check-fold on the flop after someone flat-calls a preflop raise, as I did in this spot. That usually represents strength or a mid-pair, or something like that. It’s pretty rarely a purely speculative hand, and he probably knows that.

SPG: So, he ends up calling, and you spike pretty much your dream card on the turn, an 8. So, now you have a full house, which is only second to something like 9-8 or nines. Obviously nines are unlikely, and 9-8 is a little more likely, I suppose, but can you really even consider being beat at this point?

BF: No. If he’s got me beat, I’ll double him up and not sweat it for a second. In this spot, if I had something like pocket tens and he had pocket jacks, it’s just as much of a cooler than anything else. Nobody is ever folding pocket eights in this spot unless maybe a 9 hits the river and he shoves. Then maybe I’d have to think about it, but even then I’m not sure I get away.

SPG: How do you interpret his lead-out bet, then? He leads out for about half of the pot after check-calling on the flop.

BF: He really could be doing this with the majority of his range on the flop. I didn’t really think too much of it, because I’m not folding, and I know that raising is probably bad here, because if he’s betting the turn for value, I’m going to let him bet the river for value, and if he’s betting as a bluff, I’ll let him bet the river as a bluff, too. The only negative that could come from just calling on the turn is if he has a big hand and a scare-card hits, like maybe the 10 or 7, which would complete all of the draws out there. But even then, it’s not that realistic that he could put me on those draws, just because I’m not sure that he thinks that I’m going to be calling preflop with a hand like A-10 or A J. I might be more inclined to three-bet something like that.

SPG: So, you end up calling, and the river puts out a blank, as far as you’re concerned, the 6, and he ends up pushing all in. It’s an insta-call on your part, I assume…

BF: Yeah, there aren’t any decisions, there. I’m not sure that I know what I wanted to fall, but I know that the 6 didn’t make any difference.

SPG: Briefly, what do you think of his line in this hand? He ended up having Q-10 for a stone-cold bluff. He had a gutshot-straight draw and two overcards on the turn.

BF: I think that the turn and river are fairly standard, assuming that he puts me on a hand like pocket sevens, pocket fives, or whatever. Not to mention I would call his bet on the turn with a draw that I picked up, say with the J 10. All of the draws missed on the river except for 10-7 or 7-5, which were pretty unlikely. So, in his mind, I either have a complete monster, like I had pocket nines or a boat, or I picked up outs on the turn after trying to take it down on the flop and I missed. So, the river is a good card for him to bluff at, obviously a good card to bet for value. The only thing that I’m not so sure makes a lot of sense is his flop-play. I know that Danny is a great player, and I’m certainly not going to criticize his line, but I don’t think that you can really profitably check-call that flop unless it’s specifically to set up a bluff on the turn and potentially the river if he puts me on a very specific type of hand that he can get me off of by firing the turn and river.

SPG: Thanks, Ben!

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