POTD #247 I Have No Pair, No Draw in $300,000 Tournament.
Can I pull the trigger with a ring on the line?
One of the reasons why wide-range poker like blind vs. blind or heads-up can be challenging to play is that you and your opponent will almost always have every type of hand class in every different situation. Let’s take a hand like Sunday Special #9, where Matt Matros raised and was flatted by two players, and the flop was A33 two-tone. Playing paired ace-high boards is tricky in any situation, but it becomes much easier when all three players rarely have trips. In many ring NL hands, if the flop is JTx and the turn is 9, it means that an obvious straight draw filled where all the players have a lot of KQ in their range. The strategic adjustment made is that everyone plays carefully because they might run into the nuts.
In blind versus blind play, there is no such thing as an “obvious straight draw,” because every straight draw is to some degree, obvious. If the flop is A43, you need to be prepared for either player to have 52. Hell, if the board is KQ3A4, you need to be prepared to see some 52. What makes blind versus blind play tough is that you need to be prepared for your opponent to have any hand at any time, and you need to play a robust enough strategy that it can fight back across all different types of boards and across a variety of different betting lines postflop. In order to execute in this environment, it’s important to mix what you do with certain hands and not be predictable, but sometimes you find yourself in a spot where there are pure plays, and throwing your hands up and saying, it’s blind vs. blind, everything is a mix can be costly. Today I made that sort of error during Super High Roller Bowl IX, a $300k in Cyprus in 2023. Hopefully when you, dear reader, make that sort of mistake in the future, it is for lower stakes than this.
Super High Roller Bowl IX
(4k/8k/8k) (SB/BB/BBA) 300k Starting Stack. Registration has closed.
It folds to the SB1 who completes. I (280k) have J♠️7♦️ in the BB and make it 28k, he calls.
Flop (64k) A♠️4♥️2♣️: SB checks, I bet 16k, SB calls
Turn (96k) T♦️ : SB checks, I check
River (96k) 8♣️: SB bets 60k, I fold.
