Monday, September 14, 2015

A hand history from last week - Leaving room for a 4bet

Here's an interesting hand that came up the other day at the $1/3 game at the 'Shoe:  I'm in mid position with TT facing a raise to $10 from a short stack who has around $45 total to start the hand.  I look over and he seems antsy to leave so I figure him for opening pretty wide (new trend at B'more seems to be dump chips when you're ready to leave).  Anyway, I opt to 3bet to a modest amount fully figuring my anxious friend to 4bet shove on me.  The trick here, I figure, is to 3bet large enough to get dead money to call the 3bet but keep it light enough where I can 5bet or reopen.  I raise the open to $25 and there are no less that 4 callers.  As planned, my friend 4bets all in for $45 to go.  Action to me with $125 of dead money and I consider:  I pop it to $125 and [still] pick up one caller!!! I couldn't believe that this guy flatted 5 bets....

Anyway, flop comes 236cc and I lead for $125 - he shoves over for around $73 more which I snap off and he tells me I'm good but he can't lay down his hand...  I'm not so sure about whether I'm good at this point; he probably puts me on qq+...  Tc on the turn and I figure that could go either way and the blank on the river - he shows 99 and I scoop an $800+ pot.

Keys to the hand are:
  • Consider opening bet sizing.  Are you leaving room in your 3bet to reopen the pot? Will your opener shove?  Can you pick up dead money before it gets back to your opener?
  • What is the impact of showing the TT hand on the table?  Keep in mind that the more observant players at the table have you marked as overvaluing your hands.  They're not going to trust your 3bets for the remainder of the session, and perhaps beyond.
  • What is your goal for this situation?  My goal was to get encourage callers on my 3bet and then sweep up the dead money with my expected 5 bet.  If I didn't get the 4bet shove from my anxious victim, I need to re-evaluate the hand ranges of 3bet callers for a "modest" raise of $25...  their ranges are far more narrow than limping, but they're still somewhat wide open to suited connectors and Ax suited hands as well as pocket pairs.
After the hand, one of the observant players I talk about above told me he laid down JJ to my 5bet.  Interesting and noted, sir!

Blog Archive