In this post, we run through some of the most interesting hands from BIGBLUFFZINC’s recent $1050 High Roller warm-up final table. This online beast takes on the highest stakes games every time he sits down to play, so let’s try and learn a thing or two from this end boss…
3-Way Pot with a Flush Draw
This pot begins with flat calling C.Darwin’s early position raise and then Tonkaaaa squeeze raises committing his 9BB stack from the Small Blind, C.Darwin then flat called this raise and so does Hugh “bigbluffzinc”…
The flop brings two spades so it’s looking pretty good for the Hero here with K♠ Q♠ in the hole.
Tonka adds his last Big Blind to the pot on the flop and C.Darwin flat calls this bet, so then the decision is to Hugh, should he just call this small bet and try and risk not getting stacked by C.Darwin when he is always calling his all in with his Pairs like AA and KK, or do we just take our equity in this spot and run with it?
Hugh opts to play for it all here and his reasoning is pretty sound, he states that he could just flat call, but pushing out hands like AQ and other KQ hands is a big win for this hand, if it comes an offsuit Queen on the turn and C.Darwin then moves all in this could be a huge mistake when he can just move him off this hand now on the flop with a tonne of equity even when called.
The runout is pretty decent for the Hero with the spade on the turn hitting and locking up the pot versus the short stacks AKs.
Re-Shoving Ranges
This is another interesting hand that came up with just 5 left on this high roller final table Villian raises UTG to nearly 3x making it 33,000 to go with blinds at 6,000/12,000…
This alters bigbluffzinc’s thinking on the hand, now preferring to move all-in with the extra chips in the middle rather than playing a small SPR pot post-flop he decides it’s better to just use this hand as an aggressive re-steal with a tonne of equity if his opponent manages to find a call.
Huge Pot when Three Handed
This one is a little ugly… when play is down to 3 handed it always gets a little aggressive, this pot started with Hero opening the button for a small 2.1x raise and facing a large 3Bet to around 150,000.
Now with a suited connector we will want to call some of the time and be in position, but there is no need to go too nuts unless we hit a gin flop when we do continue, the reason is it would be a huge ICM suicide move for C.Darwin to risk their tournament without a huge hand with a 20BB short stack on the table.
So for those reasons, when our opponent has to play so straight forward in this spot I don’t mind making a fold with a hand like this. However, Hero in-game does decide to flick in the call and take a flop, which brings a tonne of equity with a pair and open-ended straight draw.
However, the craziness has just begun, because C.Darwin now decides to bet over 2x the pot and move all in.
This screams strength on this wet board and even though we have a big hand ourselves it’s almost impossible that we are ahead, at the very least we are against a huge equity hand like K♥ Q♥ however Hugh decides he wants to go for the win here, maybe after a little bit of metagame with how aggressive C.Darwin has been in the past and let’s see how it unfolds…
His reasoning is pretty sound with a pair and an open-ender on this board a call is very close to being
The worst hand to see in this spot is pocket Queens as it has two blockers to Hero making the straight… we would prefer to be up against Ace or Kings for example.
Let’s look at the math…
So if the Hero is up against a hand like Aces that doesn’t block the possible straight then they have around 45% equity, however, against pocket Queens that not only block the straight but make a straight themselves with a Ten hitting the board, the Hero only has 29% equity.
Personally I think if we could get the last bet in here and have fold equity we could run this hand, however against what is clearly a very strong hand betting over twice the size of the pot on this board I would like to see a tight fold and preserve our nice big stack and maintain our lead on the short stack that is in third position.
Leading with draws
We are only ever going to want to lead on wet boards like this, this is because they are non-static and we can have a well balanced leading range that will include bluffs like flush and straight draws as well as strong hands like good top pairs, two pairs and flopped straights.
K♦ 7♦ on this board is a perfect lead because we don’t really want to check-call a bet with this weak of a hand, but betting as a steal is great, we can hit an 8 to make us a straight or a King to give us a good top pair.
We would also look to mix in some leads with strong hands on this board to remain balanced.
The turn card brings the straight, so what now?
This is when we want to use the SPR(Stack to Pot Ratio) to our advantage, if we bet here then we will shut out any bluffs that may bet if we check, but also we might get calls from hands that have a lot of equity against us still, like club draws or Jack high straight draws.
So instead of leading this is a perfect time to fain weakness and check-raise all in for value and protection. Getting any weak hands to bet so we get even more value from bluffs too.
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