Poker Strategy: Making Exploitable Folds With A Turned Flush

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I recently competed in the World Series of Poker $600 Deepstack and made a deep run. I finished 76th out of 6,090 entries for $4,184.

During deep runs in large-field tournaments, a lot has to go your way, and much of it is out of your control. However, making exploitable folds based on reads and player types can improve your chances.

During my deep run, I check-folded a turned flush in a single-raised pot after calling a single flop bet.

Setting The Stage

I was already in the money and playing nine-handed with just a few levels left on Day 1. The blinds were 10,000-15,000 with a 15,000 big blind ante. The tournament chip average is roughly 30 big blinds, while our table average is playing at a much larger stack size, around 50 big blinds.

I had about 1 million chips, or about 67 big blinds, and was dealt 98 in early position. I raised to 35,000 and got a call from the hijack.

The player in the hijack was playing with me for several hours. I knew he played preflop very well, but he was a bit of a calling station and got very greedy when he made a strong hand. On the other hand, I didn’t see him overplay middling-strength hands.

I had him covered by just a few big blinds.

Action

With 110,000 chips in the middle, the flop was QQ7. I checked, the hijack bet 90,000, and I called.

The turn brought the A. I checked, the hijack overbet to 350,000, and I folded.

Analysis On The Turn

Yes. I made a flush on the turn and folded. It’s actually kind of insane, right?

This player just seemed way too comfortable firing out these very large bet sizes. It was highly suspicious, and he rapidly put the chips in the put without much hesitation.

On the flop, I’m checking my entire range against a competent player in the hijack. The equity of his entire range is going to be stronger than mine on this board, so I have to let him make the first move. In addition, it’s a board he should range-bet for a small size.

The deviation from a solver-approved bet size is incredibly telling. Since he bet 80% of the pot, the machine says that I could’ve folded my hand on the flop about 20% of the time.

The A should mostly be a scare card for him and his range. But instead of slowing down or betting small, he bet 120% pot. Compared to the machine, this play is ridiculously out of line.

Conclusion: He Only Has Strong Value

It was quite obvious that he was holding a strong hand. Natural bluffs in this spot are really hard to come by. The question I first had to ask myself was: would he do this with a naked queen? Let’s first analyze what queens he would actually have.

He would be three-betting me with his K-Q and A-Q offsuit combos, so we can throw those away. He would flat with his Q-10 through A-Q suited combos.

So when we are looking at naked queens, he really just has two combos of Q-10 suited, two combos of Q-J suited, and two combos of K-Q suited. But it’s unlikely that he takes those hands and bets 120% of the pot with them.

Then, let’s look at which value combos have me beat. There are three combos of 7-7, two combos of A-Q and then there are higher flushes like J10, K10, and KJ.

While I was thinking, I was trying to figure out which hands would be bluffing on this turn and I couldn’t think of many. I didn’t think he was the type of playing to turn pairs like 4-4, 5-5 or 6-6 into a bluff. Nor did I think he was creative enough to do this with something like 65 or 54.

Taking Skill Edge Into Account

Since I was pretty sure that his range was comprised completely of strong value that can beat my flush, I was pretty sure I was going to fold. Furthermore, I thought I had a skill edge on the rest of the table and I didn’t need to continue on in what I thought was a thin spot.

Anson Tsang, by far the toughest player at my table that day, had already been eliminated. Since I rated myself higher than the rest of the table, I thought potentially losing 125,000 chips instead of 455,000 or worse was the better option. If I was at a tougher table, I might have to take this spot since the players could be doing the things I thought this player wasn’t.

Results

My cards got folded face-up in hopes that he would reciprocate. Thankfully, he did, and turned over the 77 for a flopped full house.