In this post, we review some hands from the wizard Go0se.core! on PokerStars, also known as high-stakes genius Steffen Sontheimer, we are going to look at how he plays some of his biggest hands of the session to see if we can learn a thing or two.

Flopping a Set and Checking the Turn

Here we have a hand where Steffen 3Bets from the Small blind and leads small on the flop, he then opts to check-raise the turn with the perfect SPR to get all the money in.

Some perks of doing this are:

• Steffen wins bluffs from the Villian with hands they will never call if he just continues to bet.
• He gets maximum protection against Villians equity when they have a one heart hand like KQo with a heart.
• He can be balanced in this line sometimes just semi-bluffing himself and get calls from worse hands fairly easily with this line.

The Button folds and Steffen takes down the pot on the turn here winning around 50BBs with this nice line.

Playing 4-Bet Pots with Pocket Jacks

This hand is 4Bet before the flop, meaning Steffen 3Bet the Hi-Jack open from the Cut-Off and the Villian put in another raise, now when this hand is in progress Steffen admits that a lot of the time this isn’t going to be good news for his Jacks in this spot, he is going to be up against Queens and Kings a great deal of the time.

However he states that just because this can happen he can’t just go folding hands this high up in his range, so he continues and flat calls the 4-Bet pre-flop.

Seeing a flop of A A 3 isn’t the worse news ever as at least the combinations of AA in his opponents’ hand is now just one combination, however his opponent can still go for value with QQ and KK on this board, but against a small bet he is not looking to fold just yet at least.

Off to the turn, which brings yet another Ace, so it’s even easier for QQ and KK to just go for value if that is what his opponent has, they bet small again and Steffen’s reasoning on this decision is a good one, he states that he can’t have many better hands, he will sometimes have QQ or AQ when he flat calls a 4-Bet pre-flop but other than that he is at the top of his range as he would always just get all the money in pre-flop with KK.

So with that in mind, he states that he cannot just pass this hand even if sometimes he will run into the cooler, so he calls again.

I really like this mindset, we cannot play poker and think, oh well, they must have me beat to bet this turn card like this, they wouldn’t do this with a worse hand once I call the flop, but players can surprise you and you can’t just go folding the top of your range, that’s not how poker works!

His opponent checks on the river and Steffen sees little point in betting as he will only get called if he is beat, it turned out that the Villian was bluffing with QJs, a decent candidate for the bluff, blocking AQ, AJ, QQ, JJ. But not quite good enough to get through the mighty Steffen whilst out of position.

Playing Sets Slow

Steffen raises the button here and gets lead into on the flop, a dream scenario for him with bottom set. Steffen opts to keep in all his bluffs and just flat call, his reasoning is that the large bet is either value heavy or bluff heavy, so there is little point to raise with both of those scenarios, his opponent is likely to bet again with good hands and their bluffs.

The turn is checked by his opponent and Steffen opts to slow play his set and hope his opponent catches up or bluffs again on the River.

This is exactly what happens in this pot, Steffen grabs an extra bet out of his opponent and manages to Jam All-in for value on the river in the hopes of his opponent finding a hero call with their hand.

Sadly this isn’t the case but Steffen but checking back the turn most likely won an extra bet on the River that he may not have won if he bet the turn.

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