Poker Hand Of The Week -- 5/19/12You Decide What's The Best Play |
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Give us your opinion in the comments section below for your chance at winning a six-month Card Player magazine digital subscription.
Ask any group of poker players how you played your hand and they’ll come up with dozens of different opinions. That’s just the nature of the game.
Each week, Card Player will select a hand from the high-stakes, big buy-in poker world, break it down and show that there’s more than one way to get the job done.
The Scenario
Your at the final table with six players remaining and have a comfortable stack of 866,000, or 36 big blinds. You are dealt J
10
in the cutoff and raise to 70,000.
Your opponent in the big blind, who has you slightly covered, makes the call. The flop comes down 10 10
8 and your opponent checks. You continuation bet 70,000 with trips and get quickly check raised to 170,000.
You have 726,000 remaining and 626,000 behind the raise. Your opponent has 696,000 behind, meaning he covers you by 70,000.
The Questions
Do you call or raise? If calling, do you raise the turn? Are there any turn cards that you wouldn’t raise? What kind of hand is your opponent check raising the flop with, out of position? Assuming you have the best hand, what is the optimal play to get maximum value?
The Argument For Calling
You’ve raised in late position and continuation bet the flop, at this point in the hand, there has been no indication of real strength. Calling this flop bet narrows your range only slightly and allows your opponent to continue on the turn with his entire range, including bluffs. Raising the turn could get you maximum value and possibly a full double up.
The Argument For Raising
As strong as your hand is, it is still vulnerable to a number of drawing hands, which you must protect against. Flush draws and straight draws make up a large portion of your opponent’s range and you want to make him pay for those draws. Furthermore, if he’s holding something like a pair of eights, he may pay off a raise. Waiting for the turn, he’s likely to see a number of scare cards which will kill your action.
What Actually Happened
At the World Series of Poker Circuit main event at Harrah’s Chester, Cory Mascagni decided to just call the flop raise of Eugene Fouksman. The turn was the 7
and Fouksman bet 220,000.
Mascagni quickly moved all in and Fouksman snap called with Q 10, a far superior hand than Mascagni’s J 10.
Mascagni needed the board to pair, a jack or a nine to stay alive and got it when the 9 hit the river, giving him a straight. Fouksman was crippled and eliminated shortly afterwards, earning $20,845. Mascagni moved up the pay ladder to fourth place, picking up $36,407.
The eventual winner was Christopher Bonn, who pocketed $109,760 and his first WSOP Circuit ring.
What would you have done and why? Let us know in the comments section below and try not to be results oriented. The best answer will receive a six-month Card Player magazine digital subscription.
Comments
Alexander3
12 months ago
first of all its a pretty tough spot to assume that your opponent holds a ten in his hand. i think that is a good example to show how cruel the pokergods are! if you see the situation from the point of view of the guy in the BB, a open raise from the cutoff is pretty standard, so he calls. that means for you he can call with an pretty wide range. then on the flop when you hit trips its just an amazing feeling. your opponent checks, you raise for value and then you get check raised! now thinking should begin: first you have never assumed your opponent to check-raise for bet in this spot. now you have the figure out whats going on: First, i think quit all draws out of his range, this man has a real hand. the only hand he is check raising you with, is an ace/lowkicker of clubs, because this hand has some showdown value and its pretty unlikely you hit the ten or eight. so i think in this spot its highly unlikely he has a straight or flush draw, especially in this situation at the final table. ok their stacks are deep but not that deep to check-raise-semi-bluff with an draw for one-fith of your stack. now i would think if he holds a ten can i beat his kicker? its pretty sure he would have raised Ace/Ten pre flop, especially out of position. its also unlikely that the villain holds the same hand like you. so the only hands that beat you is King/Ten and Queen/Ten, because a set of eights is more likely that be played for max value on later streets. and the hands that you are beating are Ten/Nine, Ten/Seven, Ten/Six etc. i think its pretty nice just to call the check-raise on the flop for just a little bit pot control. the big bet on the turn would scare me a bit, because as i said i don't think he's holding a draw and completed it now, he would check it again i think. so i would say its more likely the villain is holding a ten with an queen or king as kicker and wants to protect his hand against the straight draw on the board. in this situation its a tough push or fold decision. i mean, there are just 2 hands out there you assume your opponent to have that can beat you. therefore i think the shove is right in this situation, and as it turns out the river honored the hero`s right play. all in all i think that hand was very nice played by the hero. maybe he should reraise the check raise of the villain for information, but in this particular spot a reraise would cost you a lot of your chip stack, so think it was very nice played by both players.
answer20
12 months ago
Tough spot to be in, or is it ... the whole hand pretty much plays itself out regardless. We have no history background on BB so I think the call is the best here as it is an extremely draw heavy board. Only behind a few hands here as well ... 88 or larger 10x ... but there is a great number of draws and combo draws that could be math favorites here going into the Turn. Not knowing where the other stacks are and giving the pay step-up some consideration as well ... a call here is probably best as a blank on the Turn could get some (certainly not all) draws to fold whereas they would be more likely to call with 2 cards to come rather than 1 card to come.
The 7, although not a club, doesn't really change anything as the board is still, if not more, draw heavy to the wide open range of the BB. When the BB fires on the Turn you have to decide where your 26BB stack is best used and in this case you are well ahead of most hands and even picked up some chop outs potentially. So it is an easy decision to at least call the Turn bet of 220k into 736k as even if you are behind at this point you have enough outs to warrant at least a call. It is just a matter of what to do with the remaining 16BB in your stack?
In this case here you have to feel that you are ahead of a high percentage of opponent holdings and a shove is the right play ... get your money into the pot while ahead or live with having a 15-30% draw to suck out. Yes, one of you will be drastically hurt by this hand but is the BB going to give you any chips on any of the River cards that are good for us? Probably not, so get them in there and live with the results, potentially putting yourself in a better position for a win. If you survive, why let your opponents get a shot at the remaining 400k the BB has to put into your all-in?
This hand probably plays out much differently earlier in the tournament, but at final table it is hard to believe that either of these players would be able to get away from either of these hands even though they both could be behind ... or they both could be way ahead!! You just want to be on the winning side of these great hands.
jmstanley
12 months ago
I would raise here. I am not putting my opponent on the other 10. He could easily be raising the flop with any hand trying to represent a 10 himself and figuring that I could not call. If I just call his raise, he will know I have the 10 and probably just check fold the turn or call with a straight or flush draw. I would try to get more money in the pot because he will most likely miss on the turn. I would raise another $150K, make it $320K on the flop.
Mark6
12 months ago
Fold, I have been burned with K 10 suited over A 10 calling a min raise with two tens on the board (rainbow) instead of an 8 it was a 2.
Anyway with the BB playing he is already in the hand him calling the difference you would have to assume he has at least 9 10 k 10 or even A 10, possibly even 8 10. Him checking also I could assume he setting a trap that would also make me cautious. As my oppnent did. Then again final table clock is ticking antes and blinds plus the betting nicce pot equity would be tough not to call. But when it is all said I definatly fold this. with 36 BB left I will wait to see better cards or better oppurtunity to take a pot down.
Ben-a-fool-2-long
12 months ago
I guess I am too conservative... at that stage of the tourney, from the cutoff, I would never have even been in the hand with J-10 off-suit!
Ben-a-fool-2-long
12 months ago
Any little off-suit Broadway can only lead to trouble in the long run. You leave yourself open for all kinds of disaster! What can you beat? Yeah, of course, you can always get lucky and draw out like this guy did! But little off-suit B-ways you are almost always in a position of not knowing where they are at in almost any playable hand. The opponents range, especially from the blinds, are way too wide to risk your tourney there!