Hey,

I was playing in the PokerStars Daily 30K on Saturday, and went pretty deep. This hand happened when there were about 100 players left.

Our villian in this hand was a reasonably tight player, so when he flats the original raiser, with his stack size, I put him on a medium pair or KQ, AT type of hand. He’s either not too strong here, or he’s huge (KK+).

I expect him to fold to the squeeze, but I’m sorely dissapointed to see him flat call me. When he flats my raise, I’m now convinced he’s on a pretty big pair, and I’m still wondering why he didn’t shove.

Poker Stars $10+$1 No Limit Hold’em Tournament – t3500/t7000 Blinds + t875 – 9 players – View hand 204056
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: t310740 M = 16.91
Hero (BB): t226331 M = 12.32
UTG: t60031 M = 3.27
UTG+1: t101341 M = 5.52
UTG+2: t171457 M = 9.33
MP1: t432246 M = 23.52
MP2: t134989 M = 7.35
CO: t152644 M = 8.31
BTN: t98917 M = 5.38

Pre Flop: (t18375) Hero is BB with Qh 8h
3 folds, MP1 raises to t16500, 2 folds, BTN calls t16500, 1 fold, Hero raises to t42000, 1 fold, BTN calls t25500

Flop: (t111875) 7s 2d As (2 players)
Hero bets t63000, BTN calls t56042 all in

Turn: (t223959) 9d (2 players – 1 is all in)

River: (t223959) Ah (2 players – 1 is all in)

Final Pot: t223959
Hero shows Qh 8h (a pair of Aces)
BTN shows Jc Jh (two pair, Aces and Jacks)
BTN wins t223959

Obviously once the ace comes down, after I’ve 3bet in to two players pre-flop, I have to put out the cbet, putting him all in. I’m repping AQ, AK and I think it’s a really tough call, even for a hand as good as KK. I don’t see how he calls with JJ, but c’est la vie!

I went out a short while later, finishing deep at 92nd.

This is an interesting hand from a supersat on FTP for the 1.5M GTD that I think is pretty standard (From our perspective! No hard decisions!), and it demonstrates why it’s important to think about the sizing of your bets and playing each pot individually, on it’s own merits.

Some history:

There are three players left on the final table. Two players are about even with 80k, one is a short stack with about 6k. Theres only one seat to win, but second pays a little and third doesn’t.

Prior to this hand, we had re-raised our villain pre with ATC three times in a row, and he folded every time. Obviously he’s super exploitable, so we’re going to keep raising him with ATC until he catches on and starts playing back at us. Hopefully by the time he does, we’ll have enough chips to take down the seat!

We’re in the SB with 80k in chips and Ts 4h, villain is on the D with 74k in chips.  Short stack is in the BB with about 6k. Blinds are 800/1600.

Villain opens for 3x the BB and we re-raise him (again!) to 7.5x the BB. The short stack folds, and, surprise surprise, villain calls.

The flop comes down: 4c 4d Qh!

We check, hoping to represent a whiffed AK, and villain obligingly shoves his whole stack in. Since we’re only losing to a better 4 (which is definitely NOT in our opponents PFR range!) or QQ, we accept the donation and call, expecting to see AQ or KQ, or perhaps AA or KK, anything but QQ!

Villain flips over Qc Tc and fails to improve by the river. Two hands later, and we’re winging our way to the next satellite…

Villain shoved nearly 40BB to win a pot of 15.5BB. If he had made a sensible raise of half or two thirds of the pot, he could have easily gotten away from his hand when we shove. Instead, the short stack cashed and we took down an easy heads up battle.

Moral of the story: think before you shove!