At the CoinPoker Mid-Stakes Cash Game World Championship, “sherrysweet” ended up on the fortunate side of luck as they banged off their straight on the river and got the maximum.
In an impressive display of online poker skill, “sherrysweet” played this pot to perfection and took down a massive 341 big blind pot.
The Hand
Playing five-handed at $2-$5 stakes with a $500 max buy-in, “sherrysweet” opened to $12.50 with 7
6. “ErnieHuckler” three-bet to $57.50 from the small blind and “sherrysweet” called.
The flop came K
8
5 and “ErnieHuckler” c-bet for $60. “sherrysweet” made the call.
The turn was the K. “ErnieHuckler” checked and “sherrysweet” bet $79.20. “ErnieHuckler” made the call.
The river brought the 4
and, after “ErnieHuckler” checked, “sherrysweet” went all in for $653.75 effective. “ErnieHuckler” made the call.
“sherrysweet” won $1,705.90 with an eight-high straight.
Analysis
If a solver played this hand, raising 76 from the hijack with slightly more than 200 big blinds is optional. The machine chooses to raise the hand 52% of the time at this stack depth. Small suited connectors gain more value the deeper you are and can all comfortably call a three-bet, as these hands are phenomenal at cracking nutted hands and have a lot of implied odds.
So when “ErnieHuckler” three-bet from the small blind off of a 170-big blind stack, “sherrysweet” had an easy decision.
On the K-8-5 two-tone flop, against a half-pot bet, “sherrysweet’s” range should only raise about 7% of the time. “ErnieHuckler” has both the nut advantage and a huge equity advantage. Additionally, “sherrysweet” hardly has any very good made hands on the flop while “ErnieHuckler” can have pocket kings, pocket eights, pocket aces, ace-kings, and king-queen suited.
On the turn, when the king pairs the board, “ErnieHuckler” checked and “sherrysweet” bet about a third of the size of the pot. The solver likes to bet most of the time, though it does check at some frequency.
In practice, this hand functions better with a bet. Simply put, “sherrysweet” isn’t going to win the hand with seven-high and can fold out around 41% of her opponent’s hands with just a small bet.
When the river made her straight, “sherrysweet” has no choice but to jam the river for 165% pot. “sherrysweet” should polarize her range here by jamming the top of her range for value and with her bluffs. Because “sherrysweet” would show up with a lot bluffs, “ErnieHuckler” should be calling all of his trip kings then some hands like pocket queens and ace-eight suited as bluff-catchers.
But this time, “sherrysweet” had the virtual nuts and was rewarded with a huge pot of over $1,700.
