Poker Strategy -- Phil Galfond vs. Patrik AntoniusGalfond Analyzes a Pot-Limit Omaha Hand Aganst Patrik Antonius |
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Phil Galfond is a 24-year-old poker pro who is known for dominating nose-bleed stakes online under the screen name “OMGClayAiken.” His analytical skills have not only made him a talented player, but a successful poker coach, as well. The subscription-based training site Blue Fire Poker features in-depth strategy videos by Galfond, and in a special High Stakes Adventure video series, he analyzes hands from his latest high-stakes sessions against some of the toughest players in the world. The following is one of those hands:
The Game
Blinds: $300-$600 with a $100 ante
Game: Pot-limit Omaha
Line up
Phil Galfond — $137,641 (Button)
Martonas — $69,591 (Small blind)
Patrik Antonius — $304,376 (Big blind)
Preflop Action: Galfond raises on the button with K
9
5 5
to 1,800. Martonas folds, and Antonius reraises to $6,100. The pot is now $12,800.
Phil Galfond: The king-high suit is nice, but this is certainly not a premium hand by any means, but being on the button with the stacks relatively deep, I think it’s pretty standard to open this up.
Patrik reraises in the big blind, and stacks are super deep, so I call. Position is so powerful, and I’m getting 2-1 preflop. Although this is a hand that is not going to flop huge very often, I think that I can take pots away on boards that are scary for his range or when he shows weakness. I’m able to just control the pot size, in general, in position. Position is powerful enough here that you can call with a hand this weak, in my opinion.
Flop Action: The flop comes 9
8 2. Antonius bets $11,400, and Galfond calls. The pot is now $35,600.
PG: Pretty marginal flop for me — I flop top pair, second kicker, and I have a backdoor-flush draw. The fives give me blockers to the idiot-end of a backdoor-straight draw. A couple things are bad about my hand. First of all, I’m not going to be able to put a lot of money in on many turns. A lot of my turn outs aren’t nut outs or great outs. If I turn a king, I guess that is my best out, just because it’s very tough for him to have me beat with top two pair given his three-betting range.
I guess I should talk about his three-betting range a little bit. Patrik, this deep, has a pretty tight three-betting range that will mostly consist of double-suited high cards, single-suited very connected aces, double suited aces, double-suited connected kings, single-suited very connected kings, and then some double-suited rundowns. So, for the most part, he’s flopped over cards or an overpair here, and then sometimes he’s going to have the 9-8-7-6, 10-9-8-7, Q-J-10-9 double-suited type hands that hit this flop very well. I definitely can’t raise this flop, but I think that I am able to call here.
First of all, he’s going to be C-betting [continuation betting] pretty much all of the hands that he three-bets. He could potentially decide to check-call with a hand like aces or a hand like K-K-Q-J, something like that. He might decide to check-fold with like an A-K-Q-J, but I think that’s pretty unlikely, especially since Patrik tends to err on the side of aggression. I think his range is pretty wide in terms of equity. My equity against his range isn’t great, maybe somewhere in the realm of 35 percent or 40 percent, but I do think I can take the pot away from him if he shows weakness on certain turn cards.
Oh, and what I was saying before about some of the drawbacks to my hand … if I turn a king, it’s pretty good, and I’m very happy to get the money in. On a 9, I’m going to be getting my money in, but could easily be up against a hand like 9-8, where I have three outs only, or against a hand like A-Q-J-9 double-suited, where I only have my three kings and two fives as outs. So, although 9 is a card I’ll definitely be getting my money in on, I’m not going to be getting it in super great often on a 9. The same can be said about a 5. Even though he’s not going to have a ton of 7-6s in his range, he has some. Basically, none of my turn outs are nut outs. I do decide to call, though, given the deep stacks and my position on him. If stacks were half this deep, I would pretty quickly fold this flop, just because I don’t have enough equity to shove against his range, or fold equity, and turns are not going to go well. I’m just going to have to fold way too many turns.
Turn Action: The turn is the A. The board now reads 9 8 2 A. Antonius bets $32,400, and Galfond calls. The pot is now $100,400.
PG: Interesting turn here. The turn ace gives me the nut-flush draw, but it’s very good for his range, as well. He has a lot of aces in his range, so he would have turned a set. He also has an ace with a few high cards [in his range], potentially with hearts, potentially with A-K-J-10, things like that, that could play really well on this board.
One other hand, I left out of his three-betting range is a hand like J-J-4-4, just double-pair hands that are single suited or double suited. Those are good hands to three-bet, and deceptive ones, but I’m not going to worry about those hands too much. I just wanted to mention them for accuracy’s sake.
He bets into me again, and I think this is a very close decision. He bets $32,400 into about $36,000, and we have about $90,000 behind, so there will be a little less than a pot-size bet left on the river. I don’t think I can shove here, because I think I have very little fold equity. Although, if he did have air, I’d expect him to barrel some of the time, but there are just not many hands in his three-betting range that have air on this board, just because of how tight his three-betting range is in this spot with stacks this deep, as I think it should be. I have my nine flush outs, a 5 is likely good, a 9 is likely good, but neither of those are definitely good, as he could have pocket aces, potentially pocket eights, or something like that, or the 7-6. I think I do have a decent amount of equity, but the good thing about my hand is that a lot of my outs are very clean outs, or good outs, as opposed to on the flop when I said my outs weren’t great. A king on this river is not great at all, and a pretty easy fold for me. If I river a 9 or a 5 or a heart, obviously a heart, I’m very happily getting the money in whether it’s him betting or myself betting.
The other great thing about this situation is that by calling twice here on a board like this, I’m completely repping [representing] a draw, which is what I do have. I have a draw here, but the most likely draw, by far, in a situation like this that I would have is a wrap like a 10-7-6 type hand, J-10-7, etc., so if a 7, 6, 10, jack, or queen that’s a non-heart were to hit the river, I think it’d be a very good spot for me to bluff if he checks to me, and I do think he would check to me a decent amount of the time. Even if he does have the pocket aces, or a hand like A-J, and the river is a jack, which nails pretty much all the wraps that I could have, I think he’d be hard pressed to call with A-J or even pocket aces. He might find a call, but I still think it’d be a profitable bluff for me on those cards. Like I said, he can have a wrap himself, but hand-combo wise, I think it’s much less likely than the strong made hands at this point, or like the A-Q-J with two hearts. And yes, those hands do hit, so if he has like an A-Q-J or an A-J-10, he can hit a straight himself on the river, but I think more often than not, well, at least half the time I should say, he would just shove the river into me when he rivers a straight, rather than checking to induce a bluff, just because I think there is more value and he thinks there is more value in playing the hand that way. In addition to my outs that are pretty clean and good, I think I find myself in profitable bluff situations on the river. I think all of that, combined with my equity and everything, I decide to call.
River Action: The river is the Q. The board now reads 9 8 2 A Q. Antonius checks, and Galfond goes all in for $87,841. Antonius calls and shows J 10 9 7 for a straight to the queen. Galfond shows K 9 5 5 for the nut flush. Galfond wins the pot of $276,082.
PG: Obviously it helps to river the nuts. It’s a little bit unfortunate that the river is a queen, because he now could definitely find a fold with a set of aces, whereas if the river were the 3, I think he’s very likely to check-call, which is another thing I didn’t mention. I have a lot of implied odds with my nut-flush draw given that he could have worse flushes in his range a lot, as well as the fact that he’s more likely to put me on a straight draw than a flush draw.
He actually had a wrap himself. Obviously I won a big pot here, but in terms of the way hand played out and the way that I was planning on playing the hand on the river, he was in a very profitable situation here given that on brick rivers, he was going to shove and I was going to fold, and on rivers that completed his straight, if he decided to check, which I think he would some of the time, I was going to bluff-shove, and he was going to pick me off. This was a spot on the turn where, against his range, I still feel my play was profitable, but against his actual hand, I was in a really ugly spot. So, I do think that he played his hand very well.
It would be an awkward spot for him if I shoved the turn, because I think he’s getting 2-1. He’s committed, I guess, against some of my hands. It’s a pretty awkward spot, but it’s pretty unlikely that I’m shoving this turn with a lot of my hands. He does have a ton of fold equity on the ace, as well as how the hands could be played out on the river, both work very nicely for him, as you can see in this example.
It’s definitely a thin spot for me on multiple streets, and also a little bit of a thin spot for him on the turn and river, as far as close decisions go, but I think it’s a pretty interesting hand overall.
BluefirePoker.com is a subscription based training site where members can get access to in-depth strategy videos by in-house pros. Galfond is the lead instructor and contributes four to six videos a month. His personal blog is also posted on the website.
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