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An Unorthodox Hand

Posted by on May 30, 2011 · 2 Comments

I thought this was an interesting hand, a little unorthodox. I do not know how I felt about my play.

I post this as a student of the game, trying to figure some things out, and analyze my own hands. This was created from a bunch of my own notes while going through hand histories. If I got anything wrong with the math or in my analysis, in your opinion, I would love to hear from you. Good discussion makes great analysis.

PokerStars Game #50018426968: Tournament #313677581, $100+$9 USD Hold’em No Limit – Level XII (300/600) – 2010/09/22 17:16:35 ET

Table ’313677581 59′ 9-max Seat #3 is the button

Seat 1: J0hnny_Dr@m@ (24539 in chips)

Seat 2: bortronbomb (15551 in chips)

Seat 3: GetItQuietly (7996 in chips)

Seat 4: SmokMyBandit (29065 in chips)

Seat 5: cDShiva (38550 in chips)

Seat 6: perky264 (10748 in chips)

Seat 7: A Van Nguyen (41765 in chips)

Seat 8: Assassinato (30124 in chips)

Seat 9: QQbazTT (97974 in chips)

J0hnny_Dr@m@: posts the ante 70

bortronbomb: posts the ante 70

GetItQuietly: posts the ante 70

SmokMyBandit: posts the ante 70

cDShiva: posts the ante 70

perky264: posts the ante 70

A Van Nguyen: posts the ante 70

Assassinato: posts the ante 70

QQbazTT: posts the ante 70

SmokMyBandit: posts small blind 300

cDShiva: posts big blind 600

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to Assassinato 8dJd

perky264: folds

A Van Nguyen: folds

Assassinato: raises 720 to 1320

QQbazTT: folds

J0hnny_Dr@m@: folds

bortronbomb: folds

GetItQuietly: folds

SmokMyBandit: folds

cDShiva: calls 720

*** FLOP *** 3c4sTh

cDShiva: checks

Assassinato: bets 3000

cDShiva: calls 3000

First of all the flop continuation bet is incorrect if I do not plan to bluff later in the hand. I believe that because his fold to continuation bet is 1 time out of 7. His VPIP is 20 but he has a PFR of 13. This is a guy who likes to call.

I can only really continuation bet if I feel he’s going to fold on turn cards that are scary. Fortunately for me, there are several cards on the turn that improve my hand or that I could represent. Even if nothing changes, say if the board pairs, I believe he’s calling once with many high card hands which he’s going to fold on the turn.

*** TURN *** 3c4sTh 9d

cDShiva: checks

Assassinato: …

On the turn I pick up an Open-Ended Straight Draw. He checks to me again. I’ve never seen him react to a turn continuation bet, so I have no statistic to aid my play here.

The 9 is not a card that is easily in my range. People are more apt to believe you came in raising with big cards rather than middle connectors. Furthermore, if I turned just a pair of 9s, say with 9-8 suited, wouldn’t I check back?

I doubt this opponent is thinking this far. I feel like if the turn was something with some paint on it, or a pretty big letter “A”, he would be more likely to fold 7-7 or a Ten. I have many cards that will allow me to get value off of him on the river, so I elected to check.

*** RIVER *** 3c4sTh9d Kh

cDShiva: checks

Assassinato: …

This river card is very pretty. I could very easily make top pair with my range. I could very easily represent AK or KQ.

He has a river aggression frequency of 24% over 17 trials. Not a huge sample. That’s a little more aggressive than most players. He’s valuebetting many 10s.

I figured his range was weighted toward mediocre-weak hands, because his river aggression frequency is a little higher than usual. However, a ten here is really easily in his range. I think I am folding out a 3, 4, 5-5 through 8-8 with any kind of bet. However, I believe it’s more likely my opponent would turn this hands into bluffs given the bad board run out. Not all the time, but some portion of the time he would.

I didn’t want to valuebet 10 for him. I figured there was never a King or two pair in his range. I believed a ten would call any kind of river bet within reason, up to the size of the pot. However, I did not believe a ten, or any part of his checking three times range, would call a large bet. So I bet more than the pot.

Assassinato: bets 16800

cDShiva: folds

Uncalled bet (16800) returned to Assassinato

Assassinato collected 9570 from pot

Assassinato: doesn’t show hand

*** SUMMARY ***

Total pot 9570 | Rake 0

Board 3c4sTh9dKh

Seat 1: J0hnny_Dr@m@ folded before Flop (didn’t bet)

Seat 2: bortronbomb folded before Flop (didn’t bet)

Seat 3: GetItQuietly (button) folded before Flop (didn’t bet)

Seat 4: SmokMyBandit (small blind) folded before Flop

Seat 5: cDShiva (big blind) folded on the River

Seat 6: perky264 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)

Seat 7: A Van Nguyen folded before Flop (didn’t bet)

Seat 8: Assassinato collected (9570)

Seat 9: QQbazTT folded before Flop (didn’t bet)

I bet 16,800 to win 9,570. So my play has to work 63.7% of the time here to turn a profit. I just really felt he was praying for showdown with a weak ten or a middle pair, and he was never calling that big of a bet with those hands.

I think I could have gotten away with a smaller river bet, but it was  interesting to me to breakdown how often a very large bet like this has to work.

Categories: Strategy

  • http://twitter.com/FelipeMojave Felipe Mojave Ramos✔

    Hi Alex,Pretty good hand analysis.I think that the bet size on the river was very crucial to make him fold. Not in this life that a pair range (without K and T) would call you there.The line he decided to follow in this hand was pretty week, so maybe he was gonna fold to a false value bet too. I do think there is a small risk of him having a K. This type of player that hates to fold and has pretty huge calling station stats may have a K on his range, as he is very likely to call a flop bet with KJ or something like that and this is the only part I disagree from your terrific analysis.So I would say that either way would work on this river I think, but I still prefer the false value bet, following the idea that he would fold any pair (without K or T) to any sizable bet (60% or more of the pot).He would never check-raise the river. Having this as a rule here, I think the optimum play would be a false-value-bet and a great play would be a river over-bet. The fact that you do not have any info/stats about Turn and River c-bets vs him makes me realize this too. It is also less risky.I definitely agree with your whole hand analysis. This is just a consideration.Add me on skype if you can (felipe_mojave). I would like to have some of my recent hand histories analysed by you.Thanks,Felipe Ramoshttp://twitter.com/#!/FelipeMojave

  • http://twitter.com/Axiomat1c CDoubleU

    Assuming you are playing your normal loose preflop style and villain recognizes that, his call in the BB could be a little looser than normal but I would put him on more pairs then low or mid sc’s, so when I cbet the flop I would bet smaller since he will likely fold his bare overs and call his pairs at least once no matter the bet size. Once he calls flop I’m barreling here most of the time for several reasons: 1. when he calls flop I put him on mostly mid pairs that can’t take heat 2. We have an oesd + an over 3. The turn 9 means that a lot of rivers are gonna be hard for him to call 4.We have no showdown value. Once we check the turn I think it’s very credible to rep Kx that was giving up , so it just comes down to what type of player he is, a thinking player would know that his range looks weak here and that the chances that he has a hand to call are low so you wouldn’t overbet anything here for value(of course you could level him into calling here with any pair when you river Kx+), but someone who just looks at their hand and what possible hands beat him will be folding this river a lot. I don’t often use the overbet so I don’t really have a feel for how many more folds you get from a non thinking station with a T here than with a close to pot size bet, in my experience this type of player is folding or calling more based on their momentary emotional state than any pot odds, but I would still say the effect not negligible.