In this post, we continue to look at the action-packed short stack decisions from 888 Poker’s SNAP cash game.
Learn your opponent’s tendencies and counteract them
In this pot we defend with our 54s versus a button open, this one is a close decision as the stacks are pretty shallow with our opponent having just 10BBs behind after the preflop action.
However, our hand plays well on many boards and with this SPR the way it is we will often be able to just check-raise all in when we flop any decent equity in the shape of a pair or draw.
The flop ends up being checked through, with our opponent opting to not fire.
Now against a good player, this could mean a number of different things as solid players will be balanced in which hands they check back with, so they could even have hands as strong as top pair or better hands like sets when they check back this board, as they know with a small SPR like this they can get all the money in on just two streets like the Turn and River easily enough.
However, we don’t have this player down as a very balanced player, he has previously made overpot sized bets on flops that he has a good holding on. So we are presuming that this means he checks boards that he misses.
We see a good turn card for our holding, with an innocent enough 3 rolling off, so we could lead out here and try and take down the pot with what is likely the best hand, however, we will just shut out any worse hands from our opponent, so instead we opt for a check hoping for a bluff and then we can raise them all-in to deny equity and protect our holding.
Luckily for us, they take the bait with a large three-quarter pot bet and we put the rest of the money in, to which they folded and we take down a big pot with just a pair of fours comfortably.
Hand Tip
The main point of this hand is to illustrate the importance of paying attention to our opponents tendencies, in this pot we noticed that our opponent bets large when they hit the board, so in any pot where they don’t do this we will either look to bluff them ourselves or play our hand for value like this example.
Have a fluid gameplan when a boards texture changes
We sometimes go into a hand with a simple game plan such as “I want to bet this flop and move all-in on pretty much every Turn card”
But sometimes the boards will throw a curveball at us and we will see one of the worst cards for continuing our initial game plan, let’s look at this example:
We raise the button in this heads up pot with the monster pocket Aces, so our plan here is simple, bet to protect our hand and get tonnes of action from worse hands that can call us.
But sometimes things change, in this pot we will expect to have a lot more 9x and 5x when they choose to check call this board.
So when the 5 pairs on the Turn our game plan changes, because we now have any 9x drawing almost dead but we are in terrible shape against any 5 in our opponent’s hand.
So whilst we would have chosen to bet nearly every card, I think checking back on this and a 9 turn is a good plan, we can look to call bluffs on the River and lose the minimum to any trips.
In this hand, our opponent did end up leading out on the river to which we call, and they had just a complete random Queen high bluff. So we ended up getting max value in this pot by checking back the turn and inducing this crazy river bluff.
Know your heads up ranges
There are tonnes of training tools out there that are really cheap or some even free that will show you which ranges we will want to be calling heads up all-ins with, I can’t stress that learning these ranges is one of the most important parts of being a successful player at this game mode.
With re-buys happening at the tiny stack of just 5 Big Blinds, we will want to have a solid game plan on which hands we shove and which we will be calling off with.
Whilst this hand seems like a relatively easy call and in fact, we can profitably call much bigger all-ins with a hand like 79s, most players make key mistakes with these shallow all-ins, either by calling with too many hands or not calling wide enough, so it’s important to remain profitable to be somewhere in the middle ground.
This hand just shows how wide players will push all-in, with our opponent showing up with 95s.
Bonus Time
Casino.com are offering players that join 20 free spins instantly on registration (no deposit needed!), to enjoy on the awesome Age of the Gods slot game.
But the spins party doesn’t end there… Make your first deposit and they’ll double it right away, with a massive 100% extra up to £/€100, along with a further 180 spins!
Please note that wagering, betting restrictions and other T&Cs apply. 18+. BeGambleAware.org
Key T&Cs for offer
Spins
New customers only
20 spins after signing up
180 more spins after first deposit – 20 immediately and a further 20 per day for the next eight days after depositing
Spins and bonus wagering on Age of the Gods slot games only
Wager 20x before withdrawing
Welcome Bonus
New customers only
Minimum deposit £20
Maximum bonus £100
Wager 40x before withdrawing
Game weighting applies – please see below table
ID must be verified prior to participation.
Bonus Betting limits: Slots – £5 All other games – 10% of bonus amount
T&Cs apply.