POTD #207 Winning Wednesday: A Questionable C-Bet leads to a Questionable River Raise.

I get a head start with some help from Vladimir Korzinin and quickyl squander it

When building out my c-bet week, I was looking to see if I could have a Winning Wednesday crossover event. For those who don’t recall, Winning Wednesday is where I write about punts in tournaments I ended up winning. I went searching and found a notable hand that occurred just days after my c-betting misadventures vs. Sorel Mizzi that I wrote about yesterday.

In EPT Barcelona 2024, I came fourth in the opening Mystery Bounty, went straight from that tournament to the Bounty Quattro where I played less than an orbit, and woke up the next day to play the €20,000 NLHE. I immediately doubled up after taking a good chunk of Vladimir Korzinin’s stack with 65s on a TdTc6d flop, turn Ts, river 4d board, when he value bet his nut flush. Then I took the rest with top pair top kicker and immediately had two starting stacks. An early double-up is always a good feeling, and I was looking to continue my hot streak by turning that early double-up into another nice score. I was hoping for a smooth climb up the leaderboard before hoisting a trophy, but I did neither, but I came close. I ended up chopping the tournament heads-up with Kayhan Mokri (who won the flip for the trophy) and within less than an hour bluffed away the double stack the man known as Santa Claus had gifted to me.

Yesterday, I wrote about three separate boards where the BB can have a lot of straight draws and I had a middle pocket pair on two of them. Much of yesterday’s post was about my failure to balance what my overall c-bet strategy should look like with how to best play my actual hand. Today, we have a slight twist, in that the board has higher-ranking cards on it, which makes my pair a little worse, and most importantly, I remember what the turn and river were so I can write about a full poker hand and not just a c-bet decision. Today’s hand is about the c-bet strategy, but also how your c-bet strategy affects what you do on the turn and the river. Sometimes the solver makes a confusing c-bet choice, but upon a deeper investigation, you’ll often see the solver preparing you for some tricky turn and river plays, if you can find them.

EPT Barcelona 2024 Event #12 €20,000 No-Limit Hold’em
(1k/1.5k/1.5k) (SB/BB/BBA) 100k Starting Stack. Registration is still open

It folds to me (200k) in the HJ with 7♥️7♦️ and I make it 3500, it folds to Mike Watson (110k) in the BB who calls.

Flop (9.5k) J♠️9♥️5♥️: Mike checks, I bet 3k, Mike calls.
Turn (15.5k) T♥️: Mike checks, I check.
River (15.5k) 5♣️: Mike bets 5k, I make it 31k, Mike tanks and calls with J♥️3♥️. I rib him for taking so long and he told me he was thinking about re-raising for value.