Sunday
March 21, 2010
The action is still not anywhere near what it was at its peak, but there is still a lot poker being played at the highstakes tables. There most popular games are still the cap games, but we will have a look at a couple of hands from the more 'traditional' games.
Gus Hansen hits runner runner two pairs to win a $65K pot.
Gus Hansen didn’t have a very good day, but he still managed to win the largest pot of the day, and a dramatic one at that. Backdoor draws are often overlooked when calculating the equity of a hand, but they can sometimes be the difference between a play being +EV and –EV.
I am sure that in this hand Gus Hansen did not consider hitting runner runner two pairs as part of his winners, but without the extra 1.5% equity he would not have the correct odds to make the shove on the flop. Obviously, he did have some fold equity as well, so in all the play can definitely be defended. For Oppenheim, seeing Hansen actually hit the runner runner must have been a bit demoralizing. It always seems a bit worske when your opponent hit his hand like that as opposed to the more 'traditional' way.
theASHMAN103 flops a set and gets UarePileous to pay him off. $62K
Winning a large pot is not all about flopping a big hand. You need to find a way to get paid off as well, and on this hand theASHMAN103 found a nice way to achieve that goal. First he makes the continuation bet as his opponents would expect, and then he checks the turn to give the impression that he does not have a strong hand. By the time UarePileous realizes that he is in trouble it was all too late.
I do think, however, that UarePileous could have played the hand better. theASHMAN103 made a continuation bet into two other players on a flop that could easily have hit both of them so he probably has a fairly strong hand. UarePileous’ call on the flop seems ok since he has a gut shot to the nuts and if he hits two pairs it could also win him the hand.
The action I don’t like is UarePileous bet on the turn. I don’t think that the chance of getting theASHMAN103 to fold to the bet is large enough run the risk of getting check raised. He has a hand that has quite a bit of showdown value and if he just checks the turn there is quite a good chance that he gets the opportunity to check the river as well. theASHMAN103 might still value bet the river, but if he does, UarePileous will have a lot cheaper decision to make.
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