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Hand Review #7
SteveBlay
In this episode I review playing Ace-King from the big blind, against a raise.
Our hero 3-bets, flops top pair, but the villian shoves on the flop. What to do?
(oh, I also get abducted by poker-playing aliens in this episode)
Comments
Hey @SteveStokely - great analysis as usual. I really appreciate it. Just wanted to dive a bit farther into the thought of laying this one down though if we can. If you are somewhat discounting 66 as in villains range, then can you really find a fold here? We'd be down to 4 total combinations in villains range that we are behind (3 of JJ and 1 of AJs because only AsJs is available). That means if he even had 2 bluffs/semi-bluffs in his range we have more than the correct odds to call.
Unless you had an extensive history with this player and he was some sort of super-nit with no bluffs in his range, ever, could you make such a definitive read, especially in a cash game? Would you be that confident in your read after just 2 hours of play? How many hands of his do you get to see in 2 hours? Now, I agree that if I'm in Hero's shoes and facing that raise, I'm thinking AJs. I also know that if we talk ourselves into believing they always have the exact hand we're scared of, we will be over-folding by a ton.
Sorry about the alien abduction thing - hope the probe-bets weren't too traumatic
Hi Warlock, I actually agree with you almost completely, this is really hard to fold. Would definitely need to be damn sure that our read in correct. I don't think it's impossible to get a read like that on someone in 2 hours though. But it would be a rare case.
OUCH!
Steve - whenever I find myself in a really hard spot like this, I think about the hand between Vanessa Selbst and Gaelle Baumann on Day 1 of the 2017 WSOP Main. IMO, Selbst has one of the best minds in the game and because she could come up with exactly 1 possibility other than quads for Baumann, she made the call for her tournament life. I've watched this hand enough times to be able to go through Selbst's thought process in my head. She goes to check her suits and comes to the conclusion that "A7 hearts is a thing" so makes the call. If she had the 2 red aces, she could have found a fold. Imagine being able to do that in real time under that much pressure.
So I've been trying to train myself to make cases for other possible hands showing up aside from the 1 I really fear. I don't talk myself into making calls but it serves to temper the fear factor somewhat, at least for me. Sometimes you really are facing a monster but if you fear it disproportionately to other possibilities, you will be exploited. BTW, I am not the fastest person in picking up reads. Besides, better players can shift gears from tight to loose to something in between all during 1 session. I have to develop a defense based more on distributions because I am not good enough to base it on specific reads.
I know this was in a tournament but, in general, tournament play for stacks when this deep should be tighter than cash (in no re-entry events anyway). Here is a link to the hand for anyone not familiar with this one.
Steve, you are making an interesting comment here. You are saying that AK offsuit on average wins 3 to 4 BB. Is this something that you analytically derived? If so, have you done the same thing for other hands?
Wow, thanks so much Steve! You rock!
Alex Fitzgerald is even more of an expert in this area. He talks about this in his most excellent webinar that he did a couple weeks ago exclusively for APT members. Here's a link to the replay:
https://www.advancedpokertraining.com/poker/link.php?cl=94
Great job Steve thank you
Hi Steve,
do you only review hands from APT?
@SteveBlay said:
This link does not work, do I find this somewhere else?
Sorry, it looks like Alex removed that video; it was from a couple years ago. But there are lots of other good webinars on our past webinars page:
https://www.advancedpokertraining.com/poker/webinars.php