how to attack capped ranges like tom dwan

How to Attack Capped Ranges Like Tom Dwan

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In this post we are going to look at another hand from the legendary High Stakes Poker days, this exert is from Season 6, Episode 5…

Here is how the action played out…
With play at 6 Handed and blinds at $400/$800
Antonio Esfandiari folds under the gun (UTG)
Phil Laak then picks up A♠ 9♦ and raises to $3900
Eli Elezra flat calls this raise with A♣ 7
Phil Ivey flat calls on the button with A♦ 6♦
Daniel Negreanu flat calls in the small blind with J♣ 3
The action is then on Tom Dwan in the Big Blind who looks down at 9♠ 8♠

This is a good time to either call or squeeze raise here and try and win all the dead money from all this passive action, these dynamics come up when people have middling hands that can call a raise, but their hands play poorly in 3Bet pots, so with nearly $20,000 in the middle already, we see Tom Dwan get aggressive here and make it $28,900 to play.

tom dwan squeeze raise

It’s a good move because if this raise gets through the initial raiser, in this case Phil Laak then in theory it should nearly always get through all the other players, as none of them have chosen to 3Bet themselves even with position on each other, this is a perfect example of players who have capped ranges.

With Phil Laak only having pretty much the bottom of his early position opening range here with A♠ 9♦  the action does get through him and all the other flat callers until it gets to Phil Ivey on the button and decides he will take a flop in position, the pot is now bloated to just over $70,000 and we take a flop heads up…

The Flop

T♦ Q♣ K♦
A great flop for Phil Ivey, with an inside straight draw to the nuts and the nut flush draw… However he doesn’t have the betting lead, they are playing very deep stacked with Tom having the effective stack of around $750,000.

cbet tom dwan bluff

Tom leads out for $45,800 and the problem for Ivey here is that we can’t just raise get this in with his equity as he would be overplaying his hand drastically and only ever get action from two pairs, sets and straights. So the only course of action he can take is to flat call, however this combined with his already capped range from just calling preflop will make his hand look weak to Tom Dwan and allows Tom to just blast off with any bluff in the hopes Phil Ivey will put him on a strong holding and muck on later streets.

So Ivey does the only thing he can do here rather than turn his hand into a bluff he calls and we take a turn…

The Turn Card

3♠ Hits! A complete blank, the board now reads T♦ Q♣ K♦ 3♠

ivey in a tough spot

Tom doesn’t take his foot off the gas, with a strong suspicion that Ivey doesn’t have a super strong hand here like two pair or a straight, he puts the hammer down with a $123,200 bet, against nearly all opponents this bet would probably take down the pot, but Ivey still has a draw to the nuts and Tom Dwan is deep enough where his implied odds are fairly good, so Ivey sticks around and calls this huge bet with just Ace high and it’s off to the river card we go…

The River

6♣ Hits the end, making the final board T♦ Q♣ K♦ 3♠ 6♣
Phil Ivey rivers a Pair! & holds the best hand with just a pair of sixes on this dangerous board…
However he was looking to improve a little more than that with his straight and flush draw, so what happens…

huge bluff tom dwan poker

With a huge $408,700 in the pot Tom Dwan goes with his gut that Ivey is holding a middling hand that cannot handle the pressure that a big river bet will bring and fires out $268,200. Tom Dwan would do this with hands like top two pair, all the Sets, a flopped Straight and for this to be a bluff it almost has to be a hand like he has a suited connector that just took the spot of trying to fold out the best hand on all three streets…

The result is that Phil Ivey folds and Tom takes down the pot his this courageous three barrel bluff.

Why did he take this spot?

Well it’s so hard for Phil Ivey to have anything that can call him down on boards that don’t improve like this one…
Firstly this board hits Tom Dwan’s perceived range much harder than Ivey’s, as Ivey just flat called the button in a multiway pot, he would never do this with TT, QQ, KK, AJs and probably not AJo very often. Meaning Tom has a huge nut advantage.
Secondly if Phil Ivey had Tom beat on the flop he would have had to raise to protect his hand but he flat called, people will always look to flat call with middling hands like one pair on this board for example. A hand like QJ, KJ, JT, Ax of diamonds are all hands that Ivey can call two streets looking to improve or hoping Tom Dwan shuts down.

This hand is a very well executed three barrel bluff where Tom smelled weakness and had no fear in executing his plan, learning spots like this to take advantage of capped ranges is a very fine skill to master, but hopefully this has been an eye opening hand breakdown that will improve your game.