blonde poker forum

Scene:- 14 left in a £10 rebuy event from the initial 50. Blinds 500/1000. My stack 12.5K and on the small blind. BB has around 45 to 50K. UTG around 22K. Only us three in the hand.

Now before i describe the hand i best describe how I see BB and UTG. BB is a fairly old guy of at least 75 years of age, have seen him play on five ocassions (four times he has had a massive chip stack) and been on the same table on two of them. One of them from the start of a tournement the other midway. Solid player, not scared to fire in a few thousand to an unbetted pot just to see where he is but does fold to a re raise when its a blatent bluff!!!

The other guy also seen him around a few tournies and what I can gather is that he can be a complete cock at times, going all in blind when he gets bored is one of his specialities, but today he had been quite for around an hour and a half.

Ok the hand. UTG calls 1K everyone folds around to me and I see Aspades Qh. i decide to make the blind and the BB checks. Flop:-

  6h Td Ahrt

I lead out with a bet of 3k. BB instantly raises it to 6K and UTG calls. Now the feeling i get is that the BB is trying a steal and UTG is either on a flush draw or a pair, could even be AA, but obviously unlikely with an ace already out.

So I think a flod would be perhaps a little weak, but not unreasonable. Flat calling could get me into more difficult positions down the turn and on the river. An all in might push both of them off or obviously bust me.

So i go all in. BB folds quicker than he raised, as i expected. UTG thinks about it and says "f**k it, I call, show me your trips" and turns over Ahrt Ks.

Turn blank, river blank. Nice hand and good luck all!!!.

Hindsight is a good thing and if I knew what was going to happen i would have folded preflop but how would have people played this in the same situation??

Push pre-flop. Forget he had AK, you have 12x bb and you can't raise to pass so lump it in


flat calling OOP there puts you in a world of pain if you miss unless you are firing all-in regardless

I shove pre flop here takes your disadvantage of being oop and its defo an +ev shove.

I go broke here this shallow post flop, but im not playing flop here with most hands anyway.

definately shove preflop.

you describe UTG as someone who tends to 'get bored' - in which case this is a perfect place to shove because he's likely to call off his stack to you with a weaker ace as i'd imagine he'd limp UTG with A10 / AJ. on this occassion he played it tricky so unlucky but in the long run shoving here is the best play.

This hand shows us how much information is out there in poker...but interpreting this information is tricky.

Our task is complicated because of the pre-flop flat-call. Don't forget that flat-calling conceals the strength of your hand from the other players, so they won't have any idea that you are this strong.

UTG chooses to enter his first pot in an hour and a half with a flat-call in 1st position. He has a shortish 22k and the bb is chipped-up and not afraid to bet at the pot. This information suggests UTG has a strong hand...so maybe there is a case for the flat-call because of this. Also with only 12.5K if you push and rake in an extra 2k your situation doesn't change much. I think getting in cheaply and gambling to win a bigger pot isn't such a bad idea.

I love the flop and would be preparing to commit one way or the other because my A-Q is well disguised.

When the action gets to UTG he has seen a raise and a re-raise but chooses to flat-call for a good chunk of his chips. He knows you only have about 9k left and may well put it in. This doesn't scare him and neither does the raise from the big-stack. This information could suggest a strong hand and maybe you could find a fold here.

I don't know, it's very tricky. The very best players must use this sort of information to make the plays they do so it's worth looking at I think.

By getting this shallow you deprive yourself of an information bet on this flop. His minimum re-raise gets me to fold as AJ is the only hand you are beating.
Im all-in preflop with your hand here, saves tricky decisions postflop with a baby stack.