Entries Tagged 'Hand Analysis' ↓

Welcome back, have you been thinking about how to play a hand like Ace King on different flops versus our opponents? Any conclusions or thoughts?

Feel free to ask questions or share your own thoughts.

Let’s cut the unnecessary word play and get started.

Playing The Flop With AK

What do you do when you re-raise a great hand like Ace King, get called and miss? You have to weigh a few factors when you make a decision like this, a few examples:

• How likely is your opponent to fold if you bet?
• What reactions does he have to different flops?
• What reactions does he have to different bet sizes?
• Will you opponent bluff a lot if you check to him?

Things like those are good to keep in mind to begin with. Most players can be manipulated in one way or another. Some are harder than others. Don’t blame me if you use what you read here as an excuse to make bad plays though!

Vs. Mike Isaballah

You put in chips for the re-raise and the clock starts ticking. Mike thinks for about 5 seconds and calls.

Flop #1

The flop comes down Q 5 3 missing you completely

What now? Since Mike is super-aggressive he will most likely put you on a hand he can beat. It is pretty unlikely Mike will fold a hand like pocket jacks or even pocket sixes.

If he called with a hand that now has a draw he will most likely just shove all-in if you bet. My play would be to just check-fold if you do not think there is a fair chance he will fold. And by fair I mean over 40-50%.

You will get better chances to stack Mike in the future. One thing to keep in mind if you play AK like this and just check-fold after re-raising, is to do it with a good hand next time.

An example would be the same scenario where you re-raise pocket aces. The flop comes without an Ace or King and you check. You can let Mike bet and check-raise him all-in or just check-call feigning weakness if the board is harmless (meaning without any flush draws or big straight draws).

Flop #2

The flop comes down A 6 8 and you hit the Ace, very nice!

You should just go ahead and bet, UNLESS you’ve played a hand weakly before this. Like we talked about in the above scenario where I wanted you to remember how you played hands in the past vs. a particular opponent.

So if you check-folded after re-raising before this hand, you should check here too! If you have the K you could check-call his bet after thinking a while, making him think you have a hand like kings or queens.

There are a lot of variables that go into a decision like this. It can be complicated from time to time, just keep reading and sooner or later it will click, promise!

Now if this is your first big hand vs. Mike I would just fire out a standard 2/3rds or 3/4ths of the pot, hoping Mike raises or calls. If he calls I’ll be happy to stick my stack in on pretty much any turn card.

Vs. Steve Hateswife

Same thing here, last time you re-raised Steve pre-flop and now he calls!

Flop #1

The flop brings Q J 2 kind of missing you, but you have some outs!

This is a flop I’d like to take a stab on, you will most likely get called by many hands, but Steve is unlikely to raise you unless he has a huge hand like twopair or better.

So if you bet you will accomplish a few things:

• You will fold out nothing which he might bet if you check
• You might fold out pairs Tens and down
• If you’re really lucky Steve might fold a hand like AK or AT if he plays that
• Even if you get called you often have 7-10 outs (gut shot + pair outs)

The reason I say 7 outs is that often he will have a hand like AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ and have you reverse dominated, meaning that if you hit one of your pair outs he will improve his hand to two pair or better.

The good thing about a bet here basically is that even if he calls you have outs and since Steve is a passive player he might give you a free peak at the river too!

I would say go ahead and bet, if you get called and you hit nothing on the turn just give it up.

Flop #2

The cards are dealt and show T 9 5 giving you nothing!

This is one of those flops you can just give up on with your Ace King off suit. I mean, you can take different lines if you have good reads but on a flop like this I would just check-fold most of the time vs. a player like Steve, because often he’ll call your flop bet putting you in a awkward situation on the turn and I doubt he folds a pair on this flop, or a any draw for that matter.

Vs. Grandma Jones

Ah, old Grandma Jones, she keeps talking about her teeth falling out, I don’t know what’s going on there. After a long time she calls and I have no way of knowing if this is a timing tell since she can just be dozing off.

Flop #1

The flop comes 2 6 T

I would just check-fold here so fast vs. Grandma Jones. She will call you so often on this flop it’s not even funny. I’ll wait for a hand where I flop something and can then value-bet her to death (pun intended).

Flop #2

Flop brings K T 8

A semi-scary flop but I would fire out as big of a bet that I think she calls with any pair or any draw. This flop being especially draw heavy I am going to gravitate to betting as close to the pot as possible.

Why? Because players like this don’t pay attention to bet sizes, so she won’t care if you bet 1/2 pot or full pot. You want to charge her the maximum for calling with any kind of hand and put in money while you are very likely ahead.

I bet pot and if she calls I will fire again on any turn card until she raises me.

Why? Because it is just too likely that I have her beat no matter what card comes on the turn, and she will likely call me down with any piece of the board. A dream come true!

Vs. Mikael Pengabank

Time for Mikael, when he calls your bet you should be worried. If you have been playing tight he will likely know it. He will have adjusted his calling range and will have you beat or tied quite often.

Flop #1

A 5 9

This flop is so harmless that I would wait about 5 seconds and then check to him, trying to make him think I have a hand that is scared (KK, QQ).

This is the best way to extract value because a player like Mikael will not be calling you pre-flop with AQ in this spot. So what hands does he have? I would say most likely AK, AA, KK, QQ and maybe JJ and TT.

That means that if you bet he will have you beat or tied. The best option would then be to check and give him the opportunity to bluff. This is exactly the scenario I left you hanging with in my last post, now you know the answer!

Flop #2

2 T 9

Let’s give Mikael a bit of a loose range with AK+, TT+. Let’s assume that he will fold all his non-pair hands (AKo and AKs). This means that you will win the pot about 23% of the time when he folds, those odds are a bit slim.

There are of course other variables to take into account. For example if you bet he will likely call with most of his hand looking to see what you do on the turn giving you a “free” ~12% chance to hit a pair.

The bad thing is that if you hit an Ace or King you will likely not get any action from anything you beat. My line would be to check-fold here. I will sometimes bet but very rarely.

The End

I hope you learned something. Do you have any requests for my next post? Feel free to e-mail me or leave a comment.

Dan and I will soon be starting a weekly Q&A post where we will answer questions about anything ranging from our favorite fruit to specific hand analysis.

This is the beginning of a beautiful series of articles.

I will go through every hand in every position and today I am starting with Ace King offsuit out of the blinds.

Oh btw, this is for No-Limit Texas Hold’em, maybe Dan will make a similiar series for Limit Hold’em.

But “the blinds” is not a position you say? Well, I lied, deal with it. I am a poker player after all

But seriously, the blinds play pretty much the same so I decided to lump them together this time. I will separate them if it changes decisions and situations.

Have you ever wondered how exactly you should play AK? It is notorious for missing the flop and getting beginners into trouble because it can look so good pre-flop, but when the flop hits it can go from gold to a piece of <enter favorite bad word>.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye!

Today I want to introduce 4 friends of mine. They will take part in all of these posts.

Mike Isaballah - Mike here is your typical youngster, he’s in his 20’s and has seen all the poker shows and seen how it is done. He is very aggressive, too much so. It usually results in him getting all-in in bad spots. It also means that he will tilt people because they will over-adjust.

Steve Hateswife - Steve is your average 40-year old who likes to sit down at the poker table and relax. A nice vacation from the high pitch soundstorms he frequently encounters at home. He is a bit too passive overall and a bit too loose.

Grandma Jones - Grandma here is about 120 years old, she never gives up in life nor in poker. She frequently calls down with any piece of the flop, sometimes she might fold because she needs a glass of water or else she’ll die.

Mikael Pengabank - Mikael is from Scandinavia. You know what that means, don’t you? He is tight and he is aggressive. He is a tough player to play against, because he is good at reading your hand and knowing where he stands in the hand. It is hard to extract money from him. I guess you could say Mikael here is a professional poker player because he frequently wins money playing poker and has done so for many years.

Pre-Flop With AK

The cards are dealt, one at a time, flowing smoothly over the online surface. You finally get to peek at your cards and what do you see? The dreaded Ace King, sometimes you feel bad about getting this hand because you just don’t know what to do with it, but life goes on and you tell yourself that you rock.

The game is $1/2 ($200 buy-in) NLHE 6-max and the first player to act raises it to the standard $7. Everyone folds and the action is on you, what do you do?

Vs. Mike Isaballah

You should re-raise. How do I know? Because you have to compare your hand vs Mike’s range here. And since he is an aggressive player he will be raising UTG with a very wide range. He might raise JTo, 76s sometimes, any pocket pair and hands like that.

And then you have to ask yourself, what will he call your re-raise with? You generally want to re-raise when you will get a call from a worse hand and thus getting the opportunity to stack YOUR OPPONENT! YEAH… OK.

Will Mike call with worse than AK? Absolutely, he might call with AQ, KQs that you totally dominate. He will most likely call with many pocket pairs also (unfortunately you are not ahead of those).

Vs. Steve Hateswife

What about our friend Stevie here? He will likely raise a tighter range of hands under the gun. But you should re-raise again. Why? Steve is a passive player isn’t he? Yes he is, but what you aren’t thinking about is what he range of hands he will call with.

You see, you are right on the fact that Steve is tighter on his opening range so he might only raise AT, KJ, 99 and better.

But what will he call with when you re-raise?

A player like Steve will usually call re-raises very liberally with hands like AJ and KJ hoping to hit something. What he doesn’t know is that you often have him totally dominated so when he hits that Ace or King you will most likely win his whole stack (or at least a big chunk of it).

Vs. Grandma Jones

Grandma Jones raises UTG and it’s to you again with your AK.

This situation is a bit harder. We have to think a bit more here, what do you think Grandma Jones raises under the gun? Which hands do you think she calls re-raises with?

A player like Grandma Jones will usually not raise under the gun without a premium hand and limp with anything else. That means that she will likely raise a range that is something like AA-JJ, MAYBE AQ and KQs, maybe even limp AK. You will have to observe a player like this and what their tendencies are.

What happens if you re-raise?

She will most likely call with KK, AK, AQ, KQs (if she plays that) and only hand I can see her 4-betting you with is Aces so you can safely fold if she re-re-raises you.

I say re-raise again because she will pay you off so lightly when you dominate her and you will know when she has you beat because she will suddenly spring to life.

Vs. Mikael Pengabank

Mikael is a tough tricky bastard. He will not be so eager to put his money in with a hand that you beat. If you’ve been playing solidly (which you should) then he will most likely fold a hand like Ace Queen. So you’re in a tricky spot here because like vs. many good players, it will be hard to extract value.

I would still re-raise because you have to re-raise a hand like AK vs. a player like this. If you’re just calling with AK and re-raising AA and KK then it becomes a bit too easy to read you.

And you never know, he might call you with AQ and go broke vs. your AK. Another scenario would be that you re-raise and he calls with Jacks, the flop comes A85r and you check to him and …

Caution

Remember, poker is a game of many variables and it is your job to properly assess them. When you misjudge it can lead to a lot of bad spots.

But when you know what someone is doing you will have a better idea of what to do. If you’re a beginner you probably do not know the best lines to take with different hands even when you know what he might have.

Don’t worry, the more you read and learn the better you become. These posts and articles are meant to show you different situations and how I think and evaluate them.

They are just one perspective. You should learn from several sources and learn to think for yourself!

How Do You Play AK On The Flop?

Next time I will go into detail how you should play different flops after you get called.

What happens when you miss the flop? What happens when you hit? How can you win the most and when should you just give up?

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When we left off I had just doubled up and was getting back into the action with a stack of ~$4k, playing 20/40 NL in a fast-paced live game running 6-handed.

The Waiting Game

The game was playing very aggressive, and very “actiony” - players willing to call raises preflop, reraise preflop, and get involved with less-than-premium holdings after the flop. I’m willing to play relatively tight and wait for high equity hands because of the action at the table.

I tread water for a few hours, losing and winning some small pots. I’m forced to fold postflop a number of times after raising and missing my hand - 88 doesn’t look so hot on a K9T flop when 3 people call your preflop raise.

I didn’t get many hands for a few hours, fortunately I was able to exploit my image a bit. I stole a couple pots on pure bluffs - I could donk the flop into the preflop raiser with backdoors and overcards and get a quick fold because of my nitty image. I also 3-barrelled(bet the flop, turn, and river strongly) a particularly dangerous board (AKxxx, 3 spades) against a good player who was capable of laying down an Ace.

I start to splash around a bit, but raising light is counterproductive when it is hard to take down a pot postflop and multiple players call raises - so I get a snack and settle in.

The Pots Keep Getting Bigger

I’m sitting with $3800 having lost a bit while splashing around. Everyone folds to an aggressive player in the small blind who covers me.

He open-raises to $140, I call with T8. I’m happy seeing a flop in position with different types of hands.

Flop: J 9 7 (Pot: $280)

Jackpot! I flop the nuts on a drawy board against an aggressive player. I’ve been splashing around a little, hopefully I look a bit more “action” than I did a few hours earlier.

He leads for $200, I raise to $700.

I need to build this pot early before an unfavorable turn or river card could kill my action - and raising the flop is the best way to give myself a chance to get my money in. Hopefully he will think I’m semi-bluffing, or trying to take a stand against the big stack. If I can encourage a “pissing contest” type confrontation, so much the better.

He calls in tempo.

Turn: (J 9 7) 7 (Pot: $1680)

The turn isn’t a great card since it could potentially make him a better hand, and gives worse hands like AA a four-out redraw. It doesn’t change my plan, though.

He checks, I bet $900. This will leave about $2000 left to bet in a $3500 pot if he calls the turn, a good sized river shove.

He starts reaching for chips, and asks the dealer for time. He asks me “Do you want the money to go in now, or on the river?”
I reply with my standard response to any question: “Whatever.”

He says “this is for the turn” and puts out a call of my $900, and then says “and this is for the river” and puts about $5k down, betting the river dark, and putting me all-in.

I call instantly, before the dealer gets a chance to burn + turn. My opponent seems a bit taken aback, I guess he put me on a draw and expected me to fold the river if I missed…

The River

The river, unfortunately, is the 9, leaving the board:

River: (J 9 7 7) 9 (Pot: $7600)

My opponent looks dismayed, so in my haste I turn over my cards before waiting to see his, and he mucks facedown! His likely holdings were an overpair, a draw, or a pure bluff - nothing else makes sense.

It’s incredible to have the dealer slide such an enormous pot in my direction, especially after such bad card for my hand hit on the river and it seemed like all might be lost. I was so stoked - it took me three hands to stack all my chips!

I played for awhile until I stopped for dinner, though no eventful hands followed.

Fortunately, I’d made quite a stack, turning a rough start into an awesome day!
The last day I played limit - I may do an Epilogue discussing some of the interesting LHE situations that came up, if there is interest.

I can’t wait to go back, live poker is a great change of pace, and it is exhilarating playing higher stakes than ever before. I hope you enjoyed the recount of my NL adventure!

Henri posted some good links today, the Phil Ivey vs Paul Jackson hand is pretty intense! Let’s break it down and see if we can get into the heads of these high-stakes players.

Opening moves

Preflop: Ivey completes, Jackson checks. This is going to happen often, both players just want to see a flop. We can narrow ranges a bit - they probably don’t have AK, AA type hands - but not much else.

Flop: JJ7r
Jackson checks, Ivey stabs 80k into ~180k, a little less than half pot.

As the narrator correctly points out, Ivey will be making this bet with a very wide range of hands, putting pressure on his shorter-stacked opponent.

First Blood

Jackson clearly can’t call his 65o, but he realizes Phil’s range is wide, so he takes a shot at the pot, raising to $170k hoping to take it down. Many opponents will give up their bluff here and yield the pot, so it’s a decent move. Unfortunately, his opponent is Phil Ivey.

Ivey thinks for a moment, and likely realizes that there are very few calling hands on this flop, so Jackson is forced into a “raise or fold” situation when he holds, say, K-hi or worse. Jackson’s checkraise could be pot-building with trips, but it could very well be a cheap bluff - Jackson’s raise is barely over a minraise!

I’ve Got It, Do You?

Ivey doesn’t buy that Jackson has trips just yet, so he puts out a “I’ve got trips - do you have trips?” raise to $320k. This is a nice raise size, it forces Jackson to call only $150k more, but it says “we’re getting all-in on the turn if you call,” so it essentially forces Jackson to decide for his whole stack.

The wheels are turning in Jackson’s head, too. He realizes what Phil did earlier - that if he actually had the J he probably wouldn’t play it so fast, and that Phil might have caught on that the flop check-raise was likely to be a bluff. Jackson essentially is saying “yup, I’ve got it” as he re-re-raises to $470k.

Jackson’s Mistake

Jackson clearly has game, and is not backing down from Ivey here in this pot. However, he made one critical mistake at this point.
Phil asks him “how much have you got left?”
Jackson counts it up, about $380k - but the pot is $1 million!

Phil’s thinking it over… asking himself questions like:

• “why did he leave $380k behind?”
• “does he want me to call or fold?”
• “What does he think I have?”

A bad player might min-re-re-raise with the nuts to try and induce a call. However, Jackson is a savvy opponent, one who knows that if Ivey’s got a hand it doesn’t matter whether he bets that $380 now or on the turn, it’s going in regardless. Jackson realizes his mistake as he counts his chips and tells Ivey how few he has left. He’s thinking “damn, I should have gone all-in, I only have 380 left.”

The most likely hand that would min-re-re-raise 150k more, leaving 380 behind, is a seat-of-the-pants bluff. It wants to risk the minimum, and doesn’t care about remaining chips because he(Jackson) will fold to further action. If he actually had a Jack, he would have counted out his remaining stack before acting, realized his opponent was pot-committed, and pushed. Occasionally this will be a clever trap with a full house or trips, but most times huge hands will move all-in rather than making a tiny re-raise.

This is (somewhat) apparent as we analyze it away from the table, with the privilege of seeing both hole cards. It’s an absolutely incredible move by both players, their insight and awareness of the other’s thoughts and likely holdings make this a truly awesome hand.

I’ve been helping my brother learn No-limit hold’em the past couple weeks, and he recently made the discovery that a little bit of planning goes a long way. We’ve talked about pot-control, inducing bluffs, and other somewhat complicated concepts. He summarized it in a much simpler, more effective way.

He told me that when the flop comes down, he looks at the board, and at his cards, and asks himself “How big a pot do I want with this hand?” Once he has the answer, the actual play of the hand is easier.

A couple example hands:

Hand 1, a small pot hand:

.50/1.00 NL, $100 effective stacks.

Hero raises As2s to $3 on the button. The BB, a somewhat loose but not terrible player, calls.

The flop is: Ad 4h 4s (pot: $6.50)

How big a pot do we want with this hand? Not a very big one. If we get the remaining $97 into this $6 pot we will undoubtably lose.

There are no draws, so our opponent will rarely have a worse calling hand, and any Ace or better is ahead of us. With that in mind, we would want to get one, perhaps two streets of small betting in at the most to get value from pocket pairs.

If we decide to bet the flop and get raised, a possibly tough decision (is he bluffing? does he really have a 4?) becomes simpler: The pot is getting bigger than is acceptable for our hand’s strength, so we fold.

If bet-folding is uncomfortable, perhaps we check the flop, and our opponent makes a midsized turn bet. We call, intending to call a midsized river bet - hopefully we have induced a bluff.

Things have gotten much simpler now that we know how big we want the pot to be. If our opponent tries to force the pot larger than we are happy with, we simply fold and save some $.

Hand 2, getting value:

.50/1.00 NL, hero has $100 and villain has $25

Folded to hero on the cutoff whe raises to $3 with JhJd. The villain on the button, an unknown shortstack, calls.

Flop: Td 8d 7c (pot: $7.50)

Our opponent has $22 left in a $7.50 pot. With so little left to bet and so many draws out we are happy to get $22 in the pot.

So, we bet full pot ($7.50) so our opponent gets as close to allin as possible before the board can scare him or us. Villain minraises to $15, we stick to the plan and shove, and he calls. (pot: $51.50)

Villain shows Jc8c for middle pair and a gutshot. The turn is a K and the river an A - our Jacks hold up, but the turn and river would have made it very difficult to get villain’s whole stack had we played it slower. Or worse, if we tried to induce bluffs we might have ended up getting pushed off the best hand!

Planning is a powerful tool in NL. Take a look at the flop, and the board before you take an action. Ask yourself “how big of a pot do I want?” With a little practice even tough decisions can become much easier.