Today we are going to explore a new concept in the Poker world where the best players are betting all their stack on the River apart from one chip, this serves the purpose of allowing them to be bluffing but fold to an all in from their opponents and still be alive in the tournament.
This hand took place in the PCA $100k High Roller 2019 event Final Table
Blinds 15K/30K with a 30K ante
Stephen Chidwick (Stevie444) Opened UTG for 65K with a 34BB stack with A♠ J♥
Action folds to Sam Greenwood in the BB with a stack of 53BBs who calls with A♥ 6♥
Pot: 175K
Flop: K♦ 8♥ 7♠
Greenwood checks over to Chidwick who bets 60K, Greenwood calls
Pot: 295K
Turn: 2♥
Greenwood checks again, this time Chidwick pushes the action betting pot sized 300K, Greenwood calls picking up the nut flush draw along with his Ace high.
Pot: 895K
River: Q♥
Greenwood checks the Nut Flush over to Chidwick who bets 590K of his 595K stack leaving just one chip behind. Greenwood then moves all in for the remaining 5K chip to which Chidwick folded.
We are going to breakdown this move from one of the best HighRoller out there and see why he did it…
Firstly this move works great if there are short stacks that could possibly bust on the Final table this way we can fold allowing ourselves a chance at staying alive in the tournament and outlasting another short stack to move up a pay jump.
Stephen has chosen a hand from the bottom of his range to make this move with, it’s hard to imagine his opponent getting to the river with a worse hand than Ace High. Although it is the nut no pair the likely hood of Greenwood being able to instantly move all in over the top of this bet as a bluff or even expecting a fold are slim to none, to be fair he would probably only just call with a lot of value hands like two pairs etc just to save himself 5,000 in chips for when he is on the losing end of the end. Greenwood has a simple decision in this pot as he rivered the nuts, so there is nothing to think about for him in this example.
What does this type of move look like in the future?
Well now that people know that people may look to save just a tiny portion of their stack for when they are bluffing there are some universes where people could look to re-bluff this bluff and actually fold out the best hand that thought they were bluffing. So this move is only recommended if you have the absolute bottom of your range and you can’t imagine a worse hand that your opponent could get to the river with that beats yours.
If this is going to become a standard move now, should we balance?
As we move forward to this becoming a more widely seen move we will need to lose a tiny bit of value in certain situations in order to remain balanced, so we will need to do this with our value hands on rivers too. Otherwise, we will allow our opponents to be able to get reads on when they can hero call us.
The math behind having just a sixth of a Big Blind remaining
The good news on only having 1/6th of a blind left having a 5K chip with blinds at 15K/30K is that with the ante in play too we will be getting a great return on our investment if we manage to win the hand only needing 33% equity in the hand to have the right price with our junky hand is not hard to do, so we will have this equity with almost any two cards in the next pot.
As it turns out Stephen ends up having 83o in the next hand and has a decent chance of survival with his 36% equity against Greenwood’s Q6o… It wasn’t to be though as a Queen high flop all but sealed the deal and sent Chidwick Packing in 8th Place.
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