Hand of the day 5/30/09
Posted Sunday, May 31, 2009 by bparis
Hey everyone, sorry that hand of the day hasn’t been quite daily lately but I’ve been busy getting everything ready for the WSOP. For the next month or so, hand of the day might be intermittent, but hopefully I can make up for that by adding in some interesting live hands from the Vegas action. This hand is just a really quick example of how you can find bluffing spots HU in sit and gos that I wanted to post between grinding and packing for Vegas.
PokerStars Game #28815858538: Tournament #168007430, $72+$6 Hold’em No Limit - Level VIII (200/400) - 2009/05/30 23:16:03 PT [2009/05/31 2:16:03 ET]
Table ‘168007430 1’ 6-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 5: pokerkitten9 (2120 in chips)
Seat 6: bparis (6880 in chips)
pokerkitten9: posts the ante 25
bparis: posts the ante 25
pokerkitten9: posts small blind 200
bparis: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to bparis [6d 4h]
pokerkitten9: calls 200
bparis: checks
Simple check here, just wanted to mention that he made a fairly big mistake by just limping pre-flop. With his stack, he should be jamming, and he should be doing it with almost everything. Him limping simply gives us a free flop, and although we’re going to miss most of the time, there’s no reason for him to give us extra options. We can still choose to move all-in either before the flop or after, so we have added flexibility due to this limp. This is actually illustrative of a central tenet of game theory, that when all else is equal, giving your opponent extra options can never be the right strategy.
*** FLOP *** [7c Ad 3s]
bparis: checks
pokerkitten9: bets 400
We could easily just fold here, which is what we would have done pre-flop if he’d just gone all-in. But now we have some additional information. We know our opponent is not likely a deep thinking player, judging by the limp pre. We also know they’re not likely to have Ax, because those hands make for easy pushes pre. Given this, we actually could have a shot at making them fold. (While we shouldn’t have an ace either due to our check back pre, our opponent probably isn’t thinking high enough to discern this, or they would have pushed pre-flop).
If he folds, we win the pot of 1300. If we’re called by a pair of sevens or aces, we’ll have 16.3% with our gutshot straight draw, and we’re putting in 1720 to a total pot of 4320, so we’ll have 704 equity in the pot for a total loss of 1016. This means our play has to succeed less than half the time to be profitable, an easy proposition given our read on our opponent.
bparis: raises 1600 to 2000
pokerkitten9: folds
Uncalled bet (1600) returned to bparis
bparis collected 1650 from pot
bparis: doesn’t show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1650 | Rake 0
Board [7c Ad 3s]
Seat 5: pokerkitten9 (button) (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 6: bparis (big blind) collected (1650)
This is a risky play that worked out because our opponent gave us extra options and extra information. While the vast majority of plays made in SNGs are automatic, you can occasionally find spots like this where creative play can give you a few extra chips on your way to the win.
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