Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Hand of the Day: potting the nuts to level your opponent

poker - €0.50 PL Hi - Omaha Hi - 5 players Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 431.66 BB (VPIP: 27.74, PFR: 19.09, 3Bet Preflop: 6.63, Hands: 4,762)
UTG: 101.5 BB (VPIP: 24.73, PFR: 18.03, 3Bet Preflop: 6.67, Hands: 1,245)
CO: 184.84 BB (VPIP: 23.93, PFR: 19.81, 3Bet Preflop: 9.79, Hands: 1,089)
BTN: 91.64 BB (VPIP: 22.72, PFR: 17.01, 3Bet Preflop: 7.64, Hands: 12,797)
Hero (SB): 116.42 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 3 2 A A

fold, CO raises to 3.5 BB, fold, Hero raises to 11.5 BB, fold, CO calls 8 BB

Flop: (24 BB, 2 players) J 2 J
Hero checks, CO bets 12 BB, Hero calls 12 BB

Turn: (48 BB, 2 players) 7
Hero checks, CO checks

River: (48 BB, 2 players) A
Hero bets 48 BB, CO calls 48 BB

CO shows Q A K 5 (Two Pair, Aces and Jacks) (Pre 32%, Flop 11%, Turn 0%)
Hero shows 3 2 A A (Full House, Aces full of Jacks) (Pre 68%, Flop 89%, Turn 100%)
Hero wins 138 BB

fairly simple hand here.  My 3bet pre is standard.  My flop check is also standard.  On a dry paired flop I tend to check all of my trips, AAxx, and rundowns.  my plan will be to bet blank turns and rivers when villains check back, and x/c flop bets.  These situations are WA/WB so I need to give my opponents room to bluff, and it allows me to balance the times that I check with nothing and no equity.

So I check to villain and he bets half pot and I call.  The turn brings a bdfd and some GS, and my plan was probably to call one more street but it depends on villains sizing.  When he checks back I'm almost positive my hand is good.  There is some small chance that he might check back J7xx or JJxx in order to let catch up or bluff the river, but in general I've repped some decently strong SD value with my line and I think my opponent is going to continue betting with most of his value hands.

On the river I obviously hit the best card for me as it gives me top boat, and if my opponent was slow playing J2 or J7 I've now moved ahead.  Normally in this spot I would check and let my opponent bluff.  But this player was a particularly good and intelligent regular.  If I check to him he's just going to SD all of his not great SD value hoping I have worse (ie he'll check back Ax hoping I have KK, QQ, or a worse Ax).  and if I check to him he's not going to just bet and call it off with an underboat.  At best I'm getting one street of value.  So after a little thinking I decide to pot in order to look as bluffy as possible.  My line is purely exploitative, and it's based on the idea that by making a bet and a sizing that doesn't seem optimal for our expected ranges I might induce curiosity calls from my opponent.  I expect when I make this bet that I'm getting max value from underboats trips, and Axxx.

Villain wrote in chat "what do you have, quad jacks?" before calling with TPTK.  I feel confident if I had bet an amount that looked like it wanted a call I'm either getting a fold or significantly less value.

this isn't a play to be done all the time.  Often when your opponents aren't repping much and you're blocking lots of weak value hands potting it just assures you get no value on the river.  But in this case I think I probably got significantly more value than most regs do in this spot.

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