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The Scene: Late in $11 MTT, 900+ players to start, currently 26 players remaining at 3 tables. Blinds are currently 2.5K/5K with a 500 ante.
The Players: eric6000 in seat 2 has been playing a bit aggressive, but has been making very peculiar bets in relation to the size of the pot; either massive overbets or tiny probe bets. The bets and his play have been generally straightforward in correlation to the strength of his hand. The rest of the table has been generally tight aggressive. My image is pretty wild; I’ve been opening about 2 pots a round, and recently doubled up to 60k with A7 over 1010 when I spiked an A on the flop. I’ve been blind stealing ever since to accumulate 100K.
SB: tnvols24 (85132 in chips)
BB: eric6000 (170852 in chips)
UTG: Snout19 (165475 in chips)
UTG+1: spankysd (163577 in chips)
MP1: slonich21200 (78290 in chips)
MP2: multi1337 (113730 in chips)
HJ: MasterTemple (103910 in chips)
CO: pass.my.chip (17692 in chips)
BU: cr0ss_w1nds (194978 in chips)
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to MasterTemple [9d 9s]
Snout19: folds
spankysd: folds
slonich21200: folds
multi1337: folds
MasterTemple: raises 10000 to 15000
I’m in the hi-jack position with a solid hand; wired nines. At this stage of the tournament (Middle-Late) I usually make my raises smaller, something between 12k and 14k, because most of my raises are with marginal holdings, and when reraised, I lose less chips when I muck. With a medium pair, however, I chose to make my raise standard. I’ve got 2 players to act with huge M’s that have more incentive to take flops with me, including the button, and with a strong but vulnerable hand, I’d like to take a flop single player, preferably eric6000 in the BB.
pass.my.chip: folds
cr0ss_w1nds: folds
tnvols24: folds
eric6000: calls 10000
eric has been defending his blind regularly, but he’s been making massive reraises when he’s done it. He elects just to call? Something just doesn’t add up here, and I’m putting him on a fairly marginal hand like a small pp or two face cards or a suited ace. It’s a hand you don’t just want to give up on, but don’t want to invest a big amount of money preflop only to find out your crushed.
FLOP: [Tc 3s Ks] $39,500 in the pot
eric6000: checks
Ew. We flop two overs and a flush draw. But, our happily aggressive opponent chose to just check. What’s that mean? We’ll, lets take a look at our analysis of what he probably held preflop and compare it to the texture of our flop.
Small PP’s- He’s not thrilled with the board, either. He knows we’ve been wild, but a board that scary isn’t one to be messing around with. This is solid case for betting out, as we’ll likely end the hand right here.
A set- We can rule out KK and almost completely rule out 1010, based on his aggressive defense of the blinds. 33? That’s a scary board to be simply checking and running the risk of me checking back. I sincerely doubt 33 plays the hand like this, but it has to at least be considered. A case for merely checking, here.
Two Face Cards- When I mention this, by the way, I’m including tens. His play looks somewhat like a ten, but a hand that looks very convincing all of a sudden is QJ. We can rule out any hand with a king, as I think he’d lead into us here with it, and I also think he probes at us with the 10. The odds of a king are low, a ten are moderately low, and QJ moderately high. Given that, will he fold if we bet? It depends. I don’t think he folds the QJ, but he might fold a 10 if we make our bet around 1/2 pot or more. Neutral towards betting or checking.
Suited Ace- The only one that connected here is the Axs, and if he has that, he’s not folding. But, only a quarter of the suited aces hit, so I’d put this at moderately low. Another case for leading out.
Our information gives us our answer to the meaning of his check. Either he missed the flop and is going to fold, or caught a piece of it and may or may not fold to a bet. I think the answer is clear now, and I chose to bet 2/3 the size of the pot, a bet designed to squelch resistance from a ten or a gutshot like Q9 (which is also a possible hand, to be fair.) If he reraises me, I’m probably folding, but I still have 63K behind me if that happens, so I can still squeak by for a bit.
MasterTemple: bets 25000
eric6000: calls 25000
Hmmm. He elects to flat call me, even though my bet is large enough to where it looks as though I’m somewhat committed to the pot. A lot of players would elect to just put me in with stronger, albiet non-monster hands, like KJ and A10. Why the flat call? It looks very suspiciously like one of the draws, and we can now also eliminate the small pocket pairs and suited aces that weren’t spades. This leaves the kings, tens, QJ, and the nut spade draw. Of these, QJ and Axs look like the probable hands, with a ten coming in third, and a king or set in fourth.
TURN: [Tc 3s Ks] [7c] $89,500 in the pot
eric6000: bets 20000
Huh? eric6000 chooses to lead at me for less than a quarter of the pot, giving me 5.5:1 odds on a call. The 7 looks to be a fairly innocent card, so why is eric leading into me? Let’s look at the hands that are left in our list and see if any of them have merit in leading so weak.
A King/Set- With top pair or a set on a very drawy board, I don’t think you can afford to give a cheap card, even if it represents a third of my stack. I think you want to get all the money in now, and if the ugly card hits on the river, you don’t get bluffed out of the pot, because which scary card do I need? About half the river cards will be considered “scary” to just a king (any ace, any club, any spade, any nine, any ten) so the purpose in making a tiny bet seems flawed.
A Ten- This fits the betting so far, though it seems to have even more of the flaws that the first two have; you now have additional cards to sweat on the river, depending on your kicker. Why lead weak?
A drawing hand- THIS fits the betting to a tee. Called preflop with a marginal hand, check/called the flop with a good draw, and lead weak on the turn so he could possibly see a cheap river; if he misses, he check/folds, if he hits, he shoves.
A read like this can sometimes be hard to follow through on, but if we’re correct, our only option is to move in. We have the same problem as outlined above; most rivers scare us, as well, but we’re a solid favorite over Axs/c and QJ, which is what we suspect our bettor to hold. Our only real option is…
MasterTemple: raises 43410 to 63410 and is all-in
eric6000: calls 43410
RIVER: [Tc 3s Ks 7c] [3d] $213,820 in the pot
*** SHOW DOWN ***
eric6000: shows [Jd Qs] (a pair of Threes)
MasterTemple: shows [9d 9s] (two pair, Nines and Threes)
MasterTemple collected 213820 from pot
Good read, good result, and now we have a real pile of chips to play with.
MasterTemple would go on to finish eleventh in that tourney for $98.
