In this post, we check out all the biggest pots from Episode 4 of the newest season of High Stakes Poker!
Bellande fears the bluff
In this pot Bellande took a pretty mediocre hand and bet it like it was the nuts, betting the Flop and Turn…
The problem with doing this with a weaker hand like second pair is that we will just be betting too many hands like this and we aren’t having a protected checking range.
This hand serves much better as a bluff catcher that can call bets from worse hands like straight and flush draws.
Bellande got raised on the Turn when he is drawing to one of the two remaining Jacks to improve against Bryn’s trip Sevens. Then on the River he faces a large bet and doesn’t know what to do even when he makes two pair with Kings and Jacks.
This can be a problem for many players when facing aggressive opponents, we start to want to overprotect weaker holdings and it can get us in some tricky spots when we look to bet for value with a wider range.
Remember to always work out which parts of your range will work better as checks in spots like this and you won’t face nearly as many tough spots. Bellande ended up making the right fold here on the River and with everything getting there other than heart draws, I like his fold.
Sick Hero Call
Yet again this pot involves Bellande facing a horrible River bet. This pot was squeeze raised from the Straddle by Ji, she checked the flop and then fired off bets on the Turn and River.
Her bluff ended up getting looked up by Bellande with pocket 8’s on this run-out and there are probably a few factors why this was the case…
Firstly Ji took her foot off the gas on the Flop in a multi-way pot, even if she has a huge hand here like top set, there are a few draws you would want to protect from on this board, with straight draws like QT, QJ, T7, T8, 87 and 75.
Secondly, her sizings didn’t really make too much sense, if she is checking the Flop because she has a hand that doesn’t want to bet three streets on a King high board, let’s say a hand like TT, JJ or QQ… then she should want to size fairly moderately. Instead, she blasts off two huge bets, which doesn’t really represent anything given her line here.
Finally, she has been caught playing a little fast on more than one occasion now, so this would be her third attempt at a big River Bluff… Bellande was in the non-believers club and scooped the pot for his brave but pretty logical hero call.
4-Bet Pot
We saw a massive pot swell here pre-flop with Kenney finding a 4-Bet with his AQs whilst out of position to Petrangelos 3-Bet from the Button with AKo.
I think this is fine play, we are definitely going to want to have the lead whilst out of position against a strong player, we also block hands like AA, AK and QQ with AQs and it serves well to widen our ranges so we aren’t only making huge raises like this preflop when we are nutted.
Nick smooth calls due to not wanting to pile in $400,000 with AKo pre-flop which is understandable, I think if he was out of position this may have swayed his decision somewhat as realising his equity would prove a lot harder.
Kenney saw a King high flop and check-gave up to small C-Bet from Nick, which I think is fine, he is going to get here with many better hands, so giving up with AQ here is not a problem and Nick’s range that calls his 4-Bet is now super strong too, so there’s no harm in check folding here.
As for Nick’s play I think betting small is fine, he could also mix in some check backs, however, he has to think a huge part of Bryn’s range will include hands like JJ and QQ that he doesn’t want to give a free card to and end up losing the pot. But I do think that some checks for deception would work well when having the board locked up like this.
Tom Dwan just being Durrr
There has been a great deal of talk about how Tom doesn’t play the same style anymore, well in this pot he put the haters to sleep with this impressive semi-bluff overbet jam.
Belland was seriously considering calling off to this sizable overbet with just a pair of sixes to his credit, mainly because he thought Tom had a flush draw…
So he was in the right ballpark of what Tom was up to, applying the pressure with a draw, however, he probably wouldn’t imagine him only have Seven high.
He ended up conceding the pot and asking to see the River and Tom would have made the straight on the end.
This is a great move from Tom and just goes to show, when you are running a bluff, using hands that can pick up equity are always advisable, because it really gives you that extra bit of confidence when it comes to trying to take down the pot.
