Hand Ranges

This hand comes from the most recent World Poker Tour tournament in Venice. There are 48 players left at this point and the tournament pays 45. I’m involved in a hand against David Steicke, who is a recreational player with better results than almost any professional. He doesn’t play too much, but he won the $100,000 no-limit Hold’em event at the Aussie Millions this year (for $852k) and has many more good finishes in high-profile events.

When the hand begins I have 300,000 chips, Steicke has 180,000 and the average stack is around 150,000. The blinds are 1,500/3,000 with a 300 ante. I open A-2 offsuit from the cutoff for 7,000 and Steicke calls in the big blind. The flop is A-J-2 with two spades. He checks, I bet 11,000 into the 18,000-chip pot, and he calls.

Let’s take a look at the action at this point. From my point of view the flop is a must-bet. It enables me to induce bluffs, since I am betting this flop with just about everything – and he knows it. For the same reason I might be able to get a lot of money in the middle against a draw, and he might call three barrels with an Ace. Given the way he called on the flop – he didn’t think too much about it – I assume he has a hand that is a fairly clear call. Therefore I give him a range weighted toward Aces, decent Jacks and flush draws, and away from hands that are stronger than one pair or are very strong draws (e.g. a pair and a gutshot or a Broadway draw and a flush draw). I also don’t think he has a weak draw like K-Q or a hand like 8-8.

Pot Control

The turn is the 7s, putting the flush out there. He checks and I check behind. Sometimes I will bet here and sometimes I check: this time I thought he would rarely call three barrels with a worse hand (now that the spade hit) so I checked. This also keeps me out of an ugly spot if he check-raises a turn bet, and it allows me to value-bet a blank river.

The river is an offsuit six. He bets 32,000 into a 40,000-chip pot. I don’t think this particular opponent would turn a Jack into a bluff, and the size of the bet does not look like an A-T type hand that is value-betting. Again, given the flop behaviour, I don’t think he floated me with a gutshot that he is now bluffing. He could have played J-7 this way, but that’s just about the only hand I could see myself beating – and even that hand he folds preflop a large proportion of the time.

Given all that, I decided he had to have me beaten and folded, content that I had lost the minimum. For what it’s worth, Steicke was friendly enough to show 9s-8s for the turned flush.

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