We are going to look at another hand today from High Stakes Poker Season 5, the golden era of TV Poker with Tom Dwan battling the other Pros with his internet learnt super aggressive style.
The game is 8 handed with $400/$800 blinds and a $200 ante
In this pot, Barry Greenstein picks up two Aces under the Gun and raises to $2500
Amazingly the whole table calls the raise and we take a flop 8 ways!
This is already not looking too good for Barry with two Aces, as even though you clearly have the best hand, it’s going to be hard for your equity to be the most on a lot of flops against 7 opponents even with Aces.
As it happens the flop isn’t usually too bad for Aces, with 2 T 2 rainbow, the chances of someone calling $2500 with a two in their hand should be fairly slim, so Barry keeps the betting lead and bets $10,000
However, Tom Dwan with just a Ten here has evil plans in store, using his Ten blocker to make it nearly impossible for someone to have Pocket tens he is going to turn his hand into a bluff.
Why Bluff With a Hand with Good Showdown Value?
Tom’s plan here is that he feels he has such a strong range advantage against Barry here, he can have hands like A2s 23s TT whereas Barry just has hands like Overpairs and hands like AT when he continues on this board… Let’s see how it pans out.
Even Three of Kind Becomes Weak!
We see Eastgate with the best hand just smooth call with his weak three of a kind, even a hand like his shrivels up against a raise on this board, as nearly always he is going to be up against a hand like A2 or TT which has him nearly drawing dead!
Both players just smooth call Tom’s $37,300 raise and we go off to the turn card…
So we can see how powerful turning a hand into a bluff on a lockdown board like this can be already!
One More Bullet
On the turn Dwan bets out $104,200, now for Barry Greenstein he would have to think that Tom Dwan would have the heart to fire out a raise into 8 players on the flop and then fire over $100,000 on a complete bluff on the turn when it’s obvious both his opponents wanted to continue on the flop… But the fact is Tom is just in position with the nut advantage over Barry Greenstein’s range and is just pushing his image of having any two cards in a multiway pot to the maximum pressure point!
Eastgate ends up having to fold with Barry still behind him to act, sandwiched between the two other players in the pot makes it awkward for him to continue as he could put in $104,200 and then get raised by Barry as he is not even closing the action.
Sum Up
These are not moves you should be making in a $5 tournament on your favourite site, however, it’s a good example of using having a nut advantage against your opponents to add some pressure and really find good spots to bluff.
We need to be bluffing in poker at least a decent percentage of the time to mix up our game and make our plays unpredictable, look for spots when your range includes more of the best hands on the board than what your opponents will and push the action and you will find yourself making some successful bluffs.
Play like Tom Dwan
Tom Dwan reached the heights of High Stakes Poker from grinding up a small bankroll online! and it’s still possible to do now with some hard work and thought in your game you could build a huge bankroll and progress up stakes and bag huge winning sessions.
How did he do it?
By studying his sessions and working out which hands made him the most money and which hands were losing him cash! You will notice that whilst he plays hands like QTs and 67s aggressively he will just fold hands like A6o and A8o this is from plugging the leaks in his game and working out which hands play the best Post Flop!
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