Hot Hand #8

This is a fun hand that happened to me recently during the first hour of the full tilt 20k guaranteed tournament, and it has a little bit of everything -- some preflop decisions, some drawing and pot odds considerations, and even some slow playing or other strong-hand possibilities involved. As I reviewed my mtt hands this week, this one jumped right out as a good candidate for Hot Hand #8, so I wanted to get this up here today for you all to consider and, hopefully, to comment on.

The Setup: First half hour of the large 20k guaranteed no-limit holdem tournament on full tilt. Blinds are 20/40. I am in the BB holding QTo. Early position limps in for 40 chips, it folds around to the button who also limps. The the SB limps for another 20 chips.

Question 1: What's your move here? To me this is fairly easy -- I check and see a free flop. I don't have a great hand, and in fact it's a hand that is fairly easily dominated on either of my hole cards, so I don't want to raise it here, especially with the early limper into the pot preflop. I could see very rarely (say, 10% of the time or less) putting in a standard 3x or 4x preflop raise here, purely for deception purposes and to help me win some nice chips when I do happen to pick up a monster preflop behind multiple limpers into the pot, but for the most part this is not in my view a good spot to do anything fancy. Just take the free flop and see if I nail it.

The flop comes KJ8 rainbow, giving me a naked oesd. There are 160 chips in the pot.

Question 2: Do you bet here, or check and hope to see a free card? In this case, I opted to check. Typically I don't like to bet at flops when I have nothing and when the flop contains two cards above a 9. Those just tend to hit too many hands that stick around to see flops -- one pair, two pair, straight draw, trips, etc. So, when my hand is weak and the board contains two high cards, I like to keep things as cheap as possible, especially where I'd like to stick around and see another card. I check.

The next player then leads out at the 160-chip pot for 40 chips. The button calls, and then SB folds:



Question 2a: What about now? Do I fold where I have only a draw and at least one of these two players has almost surely made something already? Do I call and try to draw cheap? Or is a raise a good strategic play here?

To me, this was another fairly easy decision. I have to call 40 into a pot of 240 right now, so I'm being given 6 to 1 odds to make my draw. My oesd is a 31% chance of filling by the river and around a 17% chance to fill on just the turn card. So, at 6-to-1, the pot is laying me more than enough odds to call even just to see if I can make my straight on the turn card alone. Folding is out of the question. And I don't like the raise, as my earlier comment still applies, and I am likely to be behind to someone with at least one pair on this board with two high cards, so I don't want to get too involved when I know I'm behind. I have a 2-to-1 oesd with 2 cards to come, and I can see the first card for 6 to 1. Gotta take it. I call.

And the turn card cometh:



Bingo! I've made my straight. And it's even the nut straight, as anyone holding T7 has also just made a lower straight than mine. No pair and no three of a suit on the board, so my nut straight is the stone nuts at this point in the hand.

Question 3: How do I extract the most value here? Do I check and let someone else do the betting for me? Will someone bet this hand now if I check it? Do I bet small and try to draw someone into raising me? Or, do I go for the overbet and assume someone who has hit this board hard will call or raise me further? How do you play it?

Given that the 9 on the turn was in the middle of the other straight cards out there from the flop, I didn't see it as very likely that any other straights were made by this card. Rather, I figured, an oesd is a more likely holding after the turn for my opponents, or even more likely, one pair or maybe two pairs. I can't even put much credence in the flush draw since there was only one club on the flop and I'm not sure why anyone would make or call even a minbet with just a backdoor flush draw on a high flop. So, I just didn't see there as being much realistic upside on this board given the 9 on the turn, and thus I chose not to go with a big bet that I might otherwise have put in here given the high board at this point in the hand. I also, however, did not want to check since I had something good, and since all the minbetting went down on the last round of betting, I was afraid this could be checked around since as I mentioned above I thought it unlikely that the 9 filled any straights other than my own. So, I went with one of my least favorite moves typically:



The dreaded minbet. I figured, let's just get another 100 or 200 chips into the pot on this round, and if I'm lucky someone will think I am weak and put in a decent raise, which I can then reraise and take down a nice-sized pot. And that's exactly what happened:



theboatman simply could not resist my showing of weakness. Again I am reminded of my mantra when bluffing -- I always strive to tell a consistent story from the beginning of the hand if I want to maximize my ability to slow-play a strong hand (or bluff big with a weak hand). If I had come out with a 4x raise preflop in this hand, then my weak lead on the turn here could be interpreted by an astute player as me trying to sucker some more bets in with a weak bet when I am holding a strong hand (overpair, trips, etc.). But here, I just limped preflop, and I checked and then just called a minbet on the flop. Then on the turn, I led out with just a minbet of my own, which I was hoping would continue to give the impression that I was still weak, probably even on a draw as a result of the 9♣, which made not only a number of straight draws possible but also the new flush draw on the turn. Having acted weak all throughout the hand, my weak lead on the turn was immediately interpreted by theboatman as another weak play with what was likely a weak or drawing hand on my part, so he went ahead with the big raise with what was likely some kind of made hand on his part.

Anyways, I'm sure you can guess how the rest of this hand went. I immediately reverse-hoyed the guy, still holding the stone nuts and with just one card to come:



and he called my hoy bet (actually he reraised the 1 more chip to get allin, which I of course called).

Any takers as to what this guy is holding here? Is he on a draw or a made hand? I'll post the answer shortly.