Views from the Rail

The problem with pulling off a trifecta in LHE (a hand where you are OOP, have the best hand on all three postflop streets, give up the initiative on each street, and check raise on each street, while showing down (and obviously winning), is that it's incredibly difficult to both do it and have it be the correct course of action given the opponent and your hand strength.

Recently I had the opportunity to actually pull it off and, at the same time, play the hand correctly.

HUHU: A player who tended to be somewhat straightforward preflop and also tended to overplay strong, but potentially second best, hands postflop opened. I threebet AA in the BB he capped.

His range is pretty narrow here for a HUHU match: 44+, A7+, A5s+, some suited connectors, not too much random stuff.

Flop: 478 two tone.

I c/r and he called.

He is pretty prone to threebet a lot of the weaker part of his range here (draws, sometimes big aces, pairs that aren't overpairs). He's also likely to wait for the turn with overpairs. Additionally, if he does decide to wait with a weaker hand, it's pretty likely he'll bet most of those unimproved on the turn. I also think there's a fairly good chance I'll get 4 bets from his overpairs if I c/r the turn.

Turn 4:

I c/r. He threebets. I cap.

I follow my plan and get 4 bets. I'm relatively sure I have the nuts.

River 2:

I c/r. He calls. I beat QQ

My plan here is to c/r/curse call. I think, because he isn't a good hand reader, he will bet/call his overpairs at a fairly high frequency here (far more than I need for it to be correct) I also don't think I can bet/threebet ever in this spot. So I think c/r is the best play overall.

Unfortunately this hand was in a tournament. So I still don't have my badge.