Hand of the day 06/25/09
Posted Thursday, June 25, 2009 by bparis
Last week, I came back to day 2 of the $2,000 WSOP event. It was my second day 2 in a row, and I was ready to come back and start accumulating some chips right away. I came to the table with 45,000 chips at 600/1200, and I was actually one of the shorter stacks. The table had a few good players, with Jason Gray and DuckU on my left, and this other French guy who looked like a young aggro online player to my right. (David “Chino” Rheem was also at the table.)
The table started off aggressive right away, as the French guy continually opened to 3,000 and then c-bet most flops. My stack took a hit down to about 40,000 right off the bat, when I picked up a spot to three bet bluff the overly aggressive Frenchman.
He looked at his cards from second under the gun, put them back near his stack, then (somewhat reluctantly I felt) raised to 3,000. I was fourth under the gun at a 10 handed table, and I looked down at the 8 6 offsuit. I stuck in a reraise to 9,000, planning on not putting another chip into the pot if called by anybody. I figured that since he was opening so many hands, and he was second utg, he’d give my three bet a ton of respect - and he did, folding rather quickly and giving me a sizeable pot.
I had won a couple of other pots and the blinds were up to 800/1600 when I picked up another good spot against him.
Dealt to Bryan Paris [Qh Jc]
4 folds, Frenchman raises to 4,000, fold
At this point, I actually had not seen him raise, so I announced “4100” thinking that I was opening from the button. The dealer informed me that he had in fact raised in front of me, which made my play a call. In this spot I would be looking to just flat call against him anyway - our hand has value, we’re in position, and we’ve already 3 bet him with nothing, so I see no reason to turn QJ into a bluff by three betting with it too.
Bryan Paris calls, two folds (pot of 12,000 or so)
FLOP [Kd 9h 3c]
Frenchman bets 6,000
This is a pretty standard continuation bet on his part. Since his range is so wide pre-flop, we definitely can’t give him credit for a King. Our hand is only a gutshot, but it probably has two overs to him if he has a pair, and we have position so we can gain lots of additional information on future streets. The odds are that he totally missed the flop and is just stabbing at it, so should we call or raise? Raising seems a bit much, as we’re not really credibly representing anything (we’d slowplay a king or set on this board in position most likely) and we could get 3 bet and pushed off our hand. Since he’s giving us a nice little 3-to-1 on the bet, we might as well just call here and see how the action develops.
Bryan Paris calls 6,000
TURN [Kh]
Frenchman checks
Alright, so now he’s slowed down on a King, a good card for us because it makes it much less likely that he has a King which would make us drawing to only four outs instead of ten. We could stab at the pot here, as he’ll likely fold. However, since I’m trying to credibly represent either a nine or a pocket pair, I think what I would generally do in this situation with those hands is check back for pot control - and that’s what we should do here. This has the additional benefit of giving us another street of info, and a chance at hitting one of our cards and having the likely best hand.
Bryan Paris checks
RIVER [5s]
Frenchman checks
He’s checked twice, showing that he has pretty much given up the pot. At this point I think he’s put me on exactly what I’m trying to represent, a pot control hand with a nine or a pocket pair. I’m going to bet, of course, because that was our plan all long, but the question is how much? To continue telling my story credibly, I feel like a smallish bet here is the best plan. This has the additional benefit of not risking very many chips if he does happen to have a good hand that he’s planning to check/call with.
Bryan Paris bets 8,500
Frenchman folds
Bryan Paris shows [Qh Jc]
I couldn’t resist showing him just to establish a little bit of extra fear at the table. Now he knows I’m willing to mix it up with him when he opens, which will hopefully lower his opening percentage somewhat and allow me to contend for some more opens of my own. The rest of the table also now knows I have good post-flop hand reading skills, which will hopefully make them less likely to mess with me as well. Since my game plan was to run the table over and steal a ton of blinds/antes, showing this would (I hope) benefit me in the long run.
So why did the play work? It worked because we told a consistent story, and our bet sizing confirmed the story. It also worked especially well because of the profile of the player we were up against - a guy who opens a lot of pots, c-bets a lot of flops, but then doesn’t do anything too fancy beyond that. Targeting a player with a lot of chips, especially one you have position on, and then exploiting his tendencies can be an easy way to accumulate in the mid to late stages of tournaments.
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