Saturday, February 02, 2008

Trouble Tourney Hand

I finished in 4th place in the CT Thursday night tournament for two consecutives weeks. I had average to above average luck -- some key suckouts suffered, and a few dealt to others. I've had good patience when my stack has been short, which can make all the difference in this tournment since there are many players that play close to optimal pre-flop strategy.

Here's a hand that was aggravating. Its a relatively inconsequential hand overall, but I kept thinking about it later and had to go back and review. This type of hand comes up a lot in cash games and can be troubling.

Villian: Very solid player overall. Calls too much PF with a medium to average sized stack. Calls too much OOP. Plays a large stack very well -- one of the best big stack players among the CT regulars. Not afraid to run a bluff. Often plays distracted -- surfing and doing other computer stuff. He's been calling raises a lot in this tourney. I believe that he thinks I bluff more often than most CTers.

The Hand:
PokerStars Level II (15/30)
Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: Villain (1215 in chips)
Seat 9: Darvcus (2065 in chips)
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Darvcus [8d Ac]
Seat 8: calls 30
Darvcus: calls 30
Villain: calls 30
SB: calls 15
BB: checks
*** FLOP *** [8h 6c 3c]
SB: checks
BB: checks
Seat 8, : checks
Darvcus: bets 90
[I have TPTK and very likely the best hand since everyone limped PF. The board is uncoordinated but for the spades.]
Villain: calls 90
SB: folds
BB: folds
Seat 8: folds
[I put Villain on spades, some sort of straight draw such as T9 or 75, or less likely a slow-played set.]

*** TURN *** [8h 6c 3c] [Kh]
Darvcus: bets 180
[This card would not complete any of his draws. If I was ahead on the flop, I'm likely still ahead now. I also assume that if I am behind now he will raise and I'll know where I am at. This bet should chase him away if he is on a draw. Finally, if I check and he bets, I may be forced to fold the best hand. So I have to bet here.]
Villain: calls 180
[Still on a draw? Its seems very unlikely that he has a king. He could have called on the flop with KcXc, but if so I think he would raise here especially if he thinks I am double-barrel-semi-bluffing with a draw, which he knows I will do. The only thing I can settle on is that he's still drawing.]

*** RIVER *** [8h 6c 3c Kh] [Ts]
Darvcus: bets 210
[Based on my turn evaluation, this is a value bet. The ten on the river is unlikely to have hit any of his drawing hands. It occurs to me that he might have an 8 with a worse kicker.]
Villain: calls 210

*** SHOW DOWN ***
Darvcus: shows [8d Ac] (a pair of Eights)
Villain: shows [Ks Qh] (a pair of Kings)
Villain collected 1110 from pot

Analysis:
My immediate reaction was -- what the hell was he calling for on the flop?! Floating to take it away later? No, because he hit his best card on the turn and just called. So I have no explanation for the call.

I could give him credit for two spades that had a king, but there is no reason to call my flop bet with KQo. Upon further reflection, I do not like my river bet because there is no hand that would call that I beat, except maybe an 8 with a worse kicker. And the ten might have hit some draws, and might still call on the river.

When my opponent calls on the flop with a hand that really should be folded on the flop, I have trouble connecting the dots on the turn and river. I need to work on that -- but how do you re-evaluate on the turn so drastically that you nearly throw out his original hand range and devise a completely new hand range?

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