Q: If you find time i want your opinion about a hand i played in a EPT side event with a pokerstars pro from Argentina (i don’t remember his name but he won the high roller event last year at EPT London i think)…
With 75/150 blinds and about 9000 effective stack he raised from UTG+1 to 400. Everybody folded to me in button with AJs.
I thought he had a wider than tight players open range so i called.
Flop: 4-T-T rainbow… he bet 650.. I called
Turn: J … he bet 1450 and I called
River: K and he moved all in ( he had more ) and I folded…
The question is are you find my calls to loose?
At flop i thought i call to see his turn reaction… At turn I lost from a Tx, 44, JJ-AA so i call again as i thought he bet with much more hands… But the river? Its obviously great bluffing card but also now i loose from many more hands in his range…
A: Good question. Let’s start by talking about the flop float: it’s close, but I don’t love it. You don’t say whether you had a backdoor draw, but I think that would be the deciding factor for me. When you’re playing against an UTG raiser, there’s a world of difference between floating with AJ and floating with AK. The trouble here is that you don’t dominate a lot of his bluffing range. He probably has some suited Js in there, but he’s probably not playing A9. That means that unlike with AK, when an A falls, you still just have a bluff-catcher if he keeps betting. And if you don’t improve, you may end up losing to a better A-high. That complicates matters, so without the added equity of a backdoor draw, I’d just fold the flop.
That said, a call isn’t bad, and you got a great turn. As you realize, that one’s an easy call.
On the river, you’re right that you beat only bluffs, and you’re now behind a larger part of his range. By my count it’s only a slight overbet, so I think it’s conceivable that he could shove a hand as weak as KQ for value.
Then again, as you say, it’s a good card for him to bluff. Without knowing more about his pre-flop range, it’s hard to say how many hands he has that need to bluff. Small pairs could easily turn into bluffs here, but I think better pairs like 88 or 99 probably check the turn, so that’s not a big part of his range. If he has suited connectors in there, he’d probably bluff those as well, but otherwise it’s hard to put him on air.
When I started righting this, I was going to tell you to call, but I’m now leaning towards a fold. I just don’t see a lot of air in his range, since you lose to all broadway hands.
The sticking point for me is when we get to Level Three thinking: your hand looks weaker than it is. When you call the flop and then overcards fall on the turn and river, that looks like a bad runout for you. Your hand looks like a pocket pair, and there’s a lot for a pocket pair to be scared of here. I’m just not sure that matters.
One way of dealing with tough decisions is to analyze your own range. If you fold AJ here, what would you call? Is AT in your range? How about JTs? T9s? JJ? 44? Would you ever play AK or KK this way? You probably should slowplay many of those hands when you’re up against a really tough player, so that you have coverage in spots like this and are a bit harder to bluff.
As much as it pains me, I’m going to fold this. It’s a good spot to bluff, but it’s also a good spot to value bet, and he doesn’t have a lot of air in his range. His range is just a lot stronger than yours in this spot, which is why he can bluff with impunity, but also why you need to fold.
Thanks for a really thought-provoking hand!