Don't Drift Into Auto-pilot

by Nick Eisel

This month I want to cover another crazy hand I played recently online.

A number of interesting concepts are at work in this hand, even if on the surface it may be a "don't try this at home," hand example. I'm going to walk throught the hand first, then get into deeper discussion along the way.

The game is $1/$2 NL, as usual on PokerStars, though this time the effective stacks for the hand are around $250, which is 125 big blinds deep.

I'm dealt A Q on the button. Under the gun folds and a solid regular raises to $8 in second position. Everyone folds to me on the button and I'm faced with a common decision.

My standard in this spot is actually probably to fold, because it's hard to make money against a good player with AQo. This time around I decided to call, because I have position and can make plays at a lot of flops and also decide when my hand is no good before the pot gets completely out of control. This player was a little looser than the average winning regular at a nine-handed table, so that is also another reason to call.

The flop came down K 8 7 with $16 in the pot.

My opponent made his standard continuation bet of $12 and here is where the hand gets interesting.

The overwhelming majority of the time, I'm going to fold on this flop. This time was different, because my opponent is slightly looser than average and also a decent hand reader from the little I'd played with him. A tight player's under the gun raising range fares pretty well on this flop with AK hitting it as well as possibly 88 or 77. However, he's also raising QQ, JJ, TT, and probably 99 which really have a hard time continuing if they face heat. He could also have AQ as well, or AJs or ATs.

I decided to take the aggressive play here and bluff raise the flop since he has to fold anything that isn't AA, AK, 88, or 77. There is no way he can call a raise knowing I'll likely bet the turn as well if he has a hand like QQ or JJ. This is a play with relatively high variance but the payoff is that it balances out your range if you do it now and again, and it also makes you much harder and more annoying to play against. Also note that my hand is almost entirely irrelevant at this point since I should have no outs if he calls my raise here and continues in the hand. I could just as easily have 33 as AQ here and I'm raising based on the spot, not my cards.

I make a small raise to $34, almost three times his bet, also the same raise I'd make if I actually hit the flop hard.

My opponent thinks for about 15 seconds before calling my raise. This surprised me initially, because usually when someone starts to think in a spot like this, they are folding. At any rate, I was fairly certain I was done with the hand at this point.

The turn came off the 9 and there was now around $84 in the pot (minus rake).

My opponent checked and I checked behind.

The river came off the innocuous 4 and my opponent bet out as I expected he would.

Then something triggered in my brain that made me not want to fold. He had bet out only $38 into an $84 pot. Something didn't feel right about this spot.

The first thing I have to say is that there is absolutely no value in calling here. The only draw he could possibly have on the flop was T9 for a straight draw or possibly something like JTs but he would fold that to the flop raise. I really doubt he's raising with T9 in early position and even if he is, he paired up on the turn. So to those of you out there who see this river betsize and think he's bluffing, you absolutely cannot call.

What you can do on the other hand is step back and think about the hand from a total perspective involving both players. He got raised on that flop and called and is now betting out around half pot on the river. This probably means that he has either a weak hand or he's betting an amount that he thinks will get value from other good hands that might fold to a potsized bet. This would mean he's putting me on KQ or some other King, or possibly something weird like QQ or even T9.

The number one thing I realized here on the river is that there is absolutely no way he is only betting $38 with a flopped set. He would also very likely reraise the flop if he had KK, 88, or 77. The only hand he might trap with is KK and that hand would certainly either bet the turn or bet larger on this river.

So what does he have then?

I put him squarely on AA or AK that is trying to get value from a weaker pair.

After quickly thinking about how my hand should look to him, I decided to overbet and push all in for my remaining stack knowing that I could possibly have a set here and there was no way that a solid player would call it off with AK or AA here. This is not a spot where players would bluff very often and my line actually looks super strong to the average online player. Why would I bluff in this spot when he likely has a strong hand? The answer is because while it's strong, it's not strong enough to call an all in.

He ended up thinking for a couple of seconds before folding and I scooped the $160 pot.

This hand illustrates so many principles of No Limit thinking. On the flop I bluff raised because I thought a bunch of his likely range would have to fold and I'd show an immediate profit right there. On the turn, I was totally giving up. Then on the river, I picked up a bet sizing tell and decided to bluff shove all in because I thought it was highly unlikely he held a hand with which he could call. It was also very unlikely he could ever put me on a bluff on such a dry board with no flush draw. It just goes to show you how much a hand can change from street to street and you always need to consider all options and not drift into auto-pilot.

I'd also like to point out that I was playing 24 full ring tables when I made this play. Not to brag or anything.