A few people asked about this pot after I bragged about it on Twitter, so here it is, pretty sure it’s the largest pot I’ve won at $5/$10 (not counting straddled pots). I’ll talk about some of the more unconventional decisions after I recount the details.
UTG opens to $40, MP calls, I call with 4c 2c in the BB.
Flop ($125 in pot) 9c 5s 3h. I check, UTG bets $75, MP folds, I raise to $275, UTG makes it $640, I call.
Turn ($1405 in pot) 4h. I bet $800, UTG calls.
River ($3005 in pot) As. I shove for ~$3000, UTG calls with 99.
Pre-flop isn’t exactly standard, but MP was the weakest player at the table (overly loose, sizing tells, etc.), and although UTG seemed like a pretty decent player, I knew that he wasn’t one of the best regs, because even though I don’t play at Maryland Live that often I do know who the best pros there are.
I love my hand on this flop. As deep as we are, I’m more excited to have hit this than to have hit bottom set. The only hands I’d rather hold are top set, 76 with a backdoor, or 64 with a backdoor, in that order. This is a very easy check-raise. If you’re not clear on why, put yourself in UTG’s shoes and imagine how you’d feel about playing for stacks with anything less than 55 (which may not even be in his UTG range).
To be honest, I was skeptical of Villain’s three-bet. I’d actually won another pot recently at the must move table (Villain was already in the main game so wasn’t around to see this) by min-4-bet bluffing against another reg in a very similar spot. I can’t see him doing this with the intention to get stacks in unless he has a set or a big draw, and many players won’t take this line with those hands anyway. Because I had such a good draw, though, I decided to peel and pull the trigger on a later street.
The turn is a great card for my purposes, because it completes the most obvious draw. I can’t definitively exclude 76s from Villain’s range, but I had my doubts as to whether he’d open it pre and whether he’d three-bet the flop. I think he should do both, but even many pretty good mid-stakes live pros are too nitty about that sort of thing.
My biggest mistake here is the sizing. I planned to shove any river that didn’t pair the board (maybe not hearts either, just because he might not expect me to jam non-flushes for value although I would), and consequently I should have set up sizing so that I was betting more similar percentages of the pot on both streets. I think $1000 into $1400 on the turn and then $2800 into $3400 on the river would have worked out better.
Frankly, I think his river call is pretty bad. Most of my semi-bluffs have gotten there, and on this run-out I’m not shoving a lower set for value. This is what happens when you just think about “bluffs” generically rather than considering which exact hands your opponent would bluff with.
I was initially excited not only to win the pot but also to have a player sitting two seats to my right who still had me covered! As tempting as the prospect of winning a $20K pot was, he proved pretty nitty and it was getting late, so after an hour of unsuccessfully trying to provoke a confrontation with him, I cashed out and called it a night.
Any guess whether the smaller turn sizing might have kept you from getting shoved on?
It’s a good question and was my primary reason for this sizing. Unfortunately I don’t think my guess would be any better than yours.
What were you targeting with your River shove? If you felt it was a bad call with top set, were you hoping AK that got stubborn, or 2 pair (A4hh?).
Mostly I was hoping he’d make a bad call with a set.
such a boss comment boss
I wonder if villain even thought of 67 for the flopped double gutter in your chk/raise range. He probably thought it was simply set over set and was sandbagging till the river.
I think Villain probably *was* worried about 67 (probably one reason he didn’t raise the turn) but also wasn’t willing to fold top set.
Nah, people are pretty good at envisioning worst-case scenarios. I think he was more afraid of 76 than a random deuce when he went into the tank on the river.
Tell me about the turn donk, I was surprised to see this. Why is this preferred over a check-raise?
My conjecture: that is a good card for Andrew’s range–given the depth of stacks, it puts Andrew’s range ahead of Villain’s. Other things equal, when you hit such a card, you should bet with a bunch of nut hands and a corresponding set of bluffing hands. So Andrew should bet here with all his 76 (he has the full 16 combos?); all his 64 and 42 (probably just 42s and 64s); and perhaps extra ‘nut’ hands with correspondingly more bluffs.
That said, I am not an expert about this stuff, and I don’t know Andrew’s exact k/r range on the flop (nor Villain’s b/3b range at this sizing).
My thinking exactly, thanks Nate!
Do you think villain should have raised larger on the flop given your range has alot of equity? If he raises to 950 what do you do?
I don’t know that my range has so much equity. It presumably contains worse sets and some weaker draws. Even a small 3-bet gives him a tremendous amount of leverage going forwards, and the larger he raises, the more bluffs he needs to have, which is problematic because many of the seemingly ideal bluffing candidates might well prefer to call.
Just the idea of playing 900bbs deep and hoping to get stacks in makes my stomach a bit queasy. You’re an animal.
It makes most people’s stomachs queasy. That’s why being less scared gives you an edge.
Very nice hand. Couple things I’m thinking about here are how villain could have played it better. 76s be damned to a large extent, I’m almost always shoving the turn when you lead out there. That would put you in an awkward spot surely, would you have folded or called? Also on the flop I may well simply call your raise in his shoes (there’s not TOO much to be concerned about on this flop), and then raise your turn bet fairly huge. Are either of these plays ill-advised? Thanks 🙂
Re my comments – not trying to retrofit the hand knowing the results – these are genuine lines I take in game due to a desire to put maximum pressure on opponents when I have strong (but not unbeatable) value hands. There’s always that balance about maximising value which I do wonder about, which is why I ask the question.
Not at all, that’s probably how I’d play it in his shoes as well. I would have folded to a turn shove.
Cheers Andrew, always good to clarify these lines 🙂
why are there so many rivers you would shove as a bluff? As I read this I was thinking maybe hearts but most notably deuces. Both because it puts 2 ways for a straight and I think As and 6s are much more plausibly in your range than deuces. How much fold equity do you think you have after he 3bets flop and calls your turn donk? Is he really folding sets after a random overcard falls? Do you think he 3bets and gets this far in the hand with something like AA or KK? If he does, isn’t it possible that he is the type of player who will just never fold an over pair? Thanks for your thoughts and awesome hand!!
I guess I’m mostly just asking you to talk more about his turn calling range, and which of thoes hands you expect to fold blank rivers.
It’s certainly possible that he doesn’t plan to fold anything he called turn with. It’s also possible that he plans to fold all sets/overpairs unimproved on the river. What I think you aren’t seeing is that you don’t need to KNOW he’s going to fold in order to bluff. In fact, never bluffing when you don’t know what your opponent will do is more dangerous than bluffing in a balanced way. Every time you check vs a player who was planning to fold, you lose, it just doesn’t feel like a loss because you don’t see it as obviously as when your bluff gets called.