Poker Hand Discussion -- To Bluff or Not to Bluff?

In this weekly series, CardPlayer.com and the Card Player Pro poker video training site (powered by PokerSavvy Plus) are giving you a free, full-length training video. In each article, we will highlight a particularly interesting hand from that video that features unconventional play, and we will ask for your opinions on the hand.

Tell us what you think and how you’d play this week’s hand in the comments below.

Title: Should We Fire Another Barrel?

Coach: Eduard “Eddi” Antonyan

Video Description:

Poker professional Eduard “Eddi” Antonyan teaches you how to effectively check-raise in aggressive online Texas hold’em cash games. Eddi discusses which boards make for the best check-raise bluffing spots, and which make for some of the worst. With more and more players learning how to continuation-bet on boards that they miss, it’s good to have a counter-strategy to punish all of their betting.

Discussion Point:

Should We Fire Another Barrel?

The hand highlighted in this article occurs at the 14:37 mark in the video. In a $2-$4, $400 buy-in no-limit hold’em cash game, Eduard called a $12 raise with Q 10 from the big blind ($400 stack) against an opening raise from a player in the cutoff (who also had a $400 stack).

The flop came 7 7 9.

Eduard checked, and his opponent bet $16. Even though he didn’t hit much of this board, Eduard had a read that his opponent continuation-bet too much. With both backdoor-flush and backdoor-straight draws to go along with his two overcards, Eduard decided to check-raise to $52.

His opponent thought for a moment and called.

The turn brought the J, giving Eduard many more outs. He now had an open-ended straight draw, as well as a flush draw.

How should Eduard proceed? Should he bet again as a semi-bluff? Should he check and try to make his hand? Voice your opinion in the comments below.

Watch now to see how Eduard played his big draw as part of today’s free full length training video.

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