Tricky AKs

100NLHE ZOOM

I have not written a blog in a while, but hopefully I change that. I have a goal of writing a new blog every week, focusing on some of the more interesting hands that I played last week. This week I will discuss a hand from a recent season of $100NLHE ZOOM.

When it comes to pokerblogs, I think the by far best pokerblog out there is thinkingpoker.net. If you haven’t checked it out, do it right now. It is written by Andrew Boroks, one of the greatest poker minds (that is able to translate that thinking into logical and comprehensive English).  One my favorite segments of his blog is what he calls “What’s your play”. I want to try something similar this week. I will give you the action of this hand until the river. At the river, think about what you would do. Would you bet or Check and how would you respond to your opponent’s action. If you bet how much would you bet ? What range of cards do you think your opponent has? What kind of ranges does he thinks that you have?

I will give you my thoughts and the outcome of the hand in a few days.

To the hand:

I had accumulated some chips and had $175 at the table and my opponent had $160 at the start of the hand. 3FOLDS, I raise to $2 with AdKd, fold, 1call, 3fold. Flop (2way $5.50).

Note preflop: I tend to stick to a standard 2x preflop bet in all unopened pots. I used to bet closer to 2.5, but I think that in zoom tables people fold way more often using “fastfold” so 2x is often sufficient and I save ½bb everytime I get 3-betted and forced to fold my weaker holdings.

Opponent HUD: 65 hands, VPIP/PRF/3bet (26/18/0) Note not 1 single 3-bet out of the 25 times he faced a PFR. Also, he cold called 3 out of 7 hands from the CO position. These are very small samples, but it is all clues that we have about his playing style.

Flop: Kc8d6d

I bet ½ pot $3, which I think is pretty much standard C-bet against 1 opponent. My opponent called.

Turn: 3c I bet ½ $5 got re-raised to $13. I think this is a clear-cut CALL. With nut flush draw, folding is out of question. My opponent is polarized towards sets, possibly twopair (86), and some draws. It is possible that he holds a weaker K such as KQ. I think raising would be really bad since you would have to fold to a 4-bet and lose tons of equity. Also, I think that I have some call down equity to some of his range.

River: 7c.   

What do you do? Small bet to protect against big bluffs or check? If you check, how to you respond to a bet. What size bet would you call etc.

I would love to hear your inputs and ideas.

Pokerguden