We are going to take a look at some of the most skillfully executed hands from Addamo in the heads up play of the most recent SHRB Event 28 that took place on Party Poker.
After playing through over 50 of the worlds best players it was down to just Justin Bonomo and Michael Addamo to battle for the title, if you want to view a bit more detail about the tournament in general, then check out our post on it here
Thin Value Raise
In this pot Justin goes for a small blocker value bet on the River, betting just shy of 400,000 on the end, Addamo recognises that he has most likely the best hand here with his Queen and decent kicker, Bonomo could block bet with a worse Queen or even an 8 like this.
He picks up huge extra value from his hand here, just going with his read and saying “I’m raising for value” with just second pair on this wet board.
In the long run it allows him to bluff with this sizing too, as he is playing a merged style here… nearly every player in the world would have just called this bet, but this is what sets these kinds of high stakes players apart from your regular poker player.
Bonomo made the fairly tough lay down here on the end and it’s a great fold too, club draws missed, straight draws missed and he made folding second pair look like a piece of cake in this spot, hats off to both players here.
Snap Call Hero
This pot heats up on the Turn when both players pick up an open-ended straight draw when Justin missed the River he has a great hand to bluff with, he blocks straights and flushes holding the Ten of Spades in this pot.
Addamo, however, is having none of it, Justin bets out a huge 2x overbet on this River and Addamo snap-called with just bottom pair!? So, how does he make this call?
Well, he has a blocker to the flush draw, his opponent showed no strength pre-flop given that he limped in this pot with only around 15BBs, so if Bonomo had a hand like Ace-high all the money would be in already, so he pretty much only loses if Bonomo has made a flush here… which he will only do a handful of the time. The game flow might have played some part of it, or maybe he had a read that Bonomo’s overbets are just too heavily weighted towards bluffs.
Check Raise Bluff For All Of It!
The perils of going for thin value in spots like this one for Justin Bonomo is that you open up the action to getting raised. Against weak players that will never turn hands into bluffs you can easily look to bet very thin for value, but the moment you are playing a capable opponent like Addamo you are going to want to try and realise your equity a little more in close spots.
Justin Bonomo never wants to miss a chance for value though, so in this pot he decided to bet 600k into 800k on the River which got met with a huge check-raise bluff… 5,430,000 in total!
So how does Addamo pull of this magic trick?! Well, one thing that Bonomo has done here is capped his range by checking back the Turn, would he do this with flushes or other hands like three of kind here? No chance, he would try and play for stacks.
This sets himself up for being exploited by good players that will look to attack capped ranges, Addamo isn’t repping too much here, but if he has a protected checking range he could be shoving hands like Flushes and Full houses here for value, whereas Justin just doesn’t have these hands in his range once he checks back the Turn… All things considered, this is an epic bluff by the Aussie and a slightly overplayed bad two pair from Justin.
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