|
This normal hand demonstrates the power of being the aggressor preflop and why continuation bets are so effective, especially later on in a SNG. This is a very brief hand but it yields a lot of meaning, because it is so commonly done by top players – and works very effectively. It also demonstrates how even being out of position with a bad hand, on a scary board still requires you to take a shot at the flop in most cases.
PokerStars Game #2785201134: Tournament #13689968, Hold'em No Limit - Level V (75/150) - 2005/10/12 - 08:08:37 (ET) Table '13689968 1' Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: yotekiller (3025 in chips)
Seat 4: BPotter (1475 in chips) Seat 5: IsoMatti (1730 in chips) Seat 6: Sauchie (3055 in chips) Seat 9: gidders (4215 in chips)
gidders: posts small blind 75
yotekiller: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to gidders [5h 9s]
BPotter: folds IsoMatti: folds Sauchie: folds gidders: raises 200 to 350
yotekiller: calls 200
*** FLOP *** [Kd Qc 9d]
gidders: bets 350
yotekiller: folds
gidders collected 700 from pot gidders: doesn't show hand
Let’s go over this hand decision by decision.
Decision 1 – Raise 200 to 350 from out of the Small Blind.
Comments – I always say that if you have a correct image (meaning no one is really targeting you, and you haven’t shown down anything out of the ordinary) than it is perfectly fine to open a pot from any position, with any two cards – ONLY if you are willing to play the hand aggressively after the flop. Our raise here with 59o is okay, because we had established a correct image – and hadn’t been raising this guy’s BB very often.
Options – You can fold here, and it won’t hurt you very much at all. The flip side to that is that you are giving your opponent in the BB (who has less chips than you to start the hand, 5 handed) his big blind back for free, plus your small blind. Most people are willing to surrender their big blinds to any kind of pressure, so you want to take advantage of this. By raising here, not only do you take the lead should he call, and have the benefit of getting to lead out into him where you have put him to the test – instead of the other way around (the way position usually works), but you also will pick up a lot of these pots just because he will fold before the flop (your stack is menacing to his).
Decision 2 – Bet 350 into 700 with 3865 left at the start of the hand.
Comments – This is pretty standard, even though the board really looks like it could have hit our opponent. In these situations, where it seems almost fruitless to take a stab at the pot – try envisioning your opponent having cards that completely missed to help your confidence in your bet. In this case, I imagined my opponent holding Ace Rag, a small pair, or a mid connecting cards like 87.
When you bet out like this after you are the preflop raiser, the flop almost becomes meaningless because you are going to bet out almost regardless if you flopped huge or flopped nothing. Even if you raise with a hand like QT, and the flop comes QTT – I would advise you to still bet it – which we will discuss in future Hand Of The Day’s.
If he raises you on the flop, it is an easy fold. If he calls, you are probably only going to bet the turn if it pairs your 5 or 9 – and you could argue you could take another shot if a straight card comes out (T or J). Other than that, you are pretty much done with the hand having lost as minimal chips as possible while still being consistently aggressive.
Options – Varying up your bet here is really the only the option. If you believe your opponents starting requirements are high, than you might want to bet the pot on this flop (trying to “protect” your hand) – and he might subsequently lay down a hand like AQ if he believes you are betting to protecting to protect your king. In this case, he took a bit of time to fold, which lead me to believe he had a hand like J9, or T9 and decided he didn’t want to get involved (helps immensely that I was the preflop aggressor because I take away his option to be in the lead, unless he wants to “gamble” by raising me, not knowing how strong or weak I really am)
Lesson – Even on the scariest of boards, it is almost always to follow up a preflop raise with a continuation bet into 1 opponent, especially later on in the SNG when the pots are worth more to your stack and more crippling to your opponents.
|
Hand Of The Day 
