Views from the Rail

From time to time, I’ll try to post a hand that I think illustrates an interesting or important concept. Recently I played this hand against one of my students, James, during a coaching session. I asked his permission to post it, which he kindly gave. First the hand:

Poker Stars $30/$60 Limit Hold’em – 2 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Pre Flop: (0.1 SB) Hero is BB with A J
BTN/SB raises, Hero 3-bets, BTN/SB calls

Flop: (0.4 SB) K A 9 (2 players)
Hero bets, BTN/SB calls

Turn: (0.267 BB) 6 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets, Hero raises, BTN/SB calls

River: (0.533 BB) 5 (2 players)
Hero bets, BTN/SB raises, Hero calls

Final Pot: 0.8 BB
Hero shows A J (a pair of Aces)
BTN/SB shows 9 T (a pair of Nines)
Hero wins 0.8 BB

So the hand starts in a relatively standard way. I’ve been threebetting him fairly liberally from the big blind and so, of course, I’m going to threebet this very strong hand. The flop is an auto bet with my whole range, but once James calls, I gain some important information about his range:

First, I think he’ll probably wait for the turn with a large portion of both his value range and his bluff range. I’ve also been checking the turn with a big chunk of my range on high card board textures so I expect him to raise the flop a bit more than he usually would. With that said, I think his range is going to be a bit wider and stronger than usual when he calls this flop.

What’s the correct adjustment against this kind of range? As I alluded to earlier, on these board textures against this kind of range, I think it’s important to check a large and balanced portion of your range on the turn. In this hand, I go ahead and check, planning to check raise. Given the match dynamics and James’ wider, but still somewhat strong range, I think this is the proper play.

James, I think, is in a tough spot with his particular hand, which is one of the great reasons for checking the turn. I think his bet is defensible in this situation because I have a lot of weakish hands (Qx, JT, xx with one heart) that he’ll from which he’ll either want to extract value or induce a bluff raise. I also think he can consider checking because, even though my preflop 3betting range is reasonably wide, it’s still a flop on which my range is very strong in relation to his hand.

Anyway, James decides to bet, which, again, I think is a defensible, but possibly incorrect. Once I check raise, however, I think he makes the obvious right choice to call and see what happens on the river. I think James should consider different options on different river cards.

The river is an interesting card, putting a 4flush on the board. I think against some opponents, passive guys who can’t fold a hand, I should consider a b/f; against others, who bluff often but don’t hand read well, I think a c/c is better.

Here, I decided to bet to induce a bluff raise. I did this for a couple of reasons. James is a creative player who is capable of turning a made hand into a bluff. I also think that his bet call on the turn is indicative of a made hand and not a bluff. It’s also important to realize that it’s a difficult spot for James to value raise thin, although he’s certainly capable of it. It would be rare for him to have the Qh or even Jh, as his turn bet with those hand exactly would be questionable.

I also want to take a moment to discuss James’ river play. I think it’s pretty good; however, I was just a step ahead of him. I think many players, even good ones, would fold a large chunk of their value range when they bet the river here. Furthermore, if he’s playing a GTO strategy, I think it’s important for him to turn made hands into bluffs. If he doesn’t, he won’t have any bluffs in his range at all unless he does some kind of weird (and imo bad) float. This is part of the bottom of his range, and as such, should be turned into a bluff in a non-exploitable/exploitative strategy.

If you guys have any comments, please leave em below.