POTD #3 EPT Paris #34 €25k Single Day Two Pair vs Thomas Mühlöcker
Paris. The City of Light! I arrived just after Valentine’s Day. It was like a movie.
The hotel and casino were connected to a mall with a very good grocery store. I went outside twice in two weeks.
The first two POTDs were about putting too much money in the pot with a bad hand. Today, I mixed it up and put too much money in the pot with a good hand. At least my mistakes are balanced. Since this hand happened two years ago, I had to estimate stack sizes and exact bet sizes, but don’t worry-- the mistakes I made were robust enough that they’re mistakes at 20 BBs and 100 BBs.
2023 EPT Paris #34 €25k Single Day, Single Re-entry
Level 11: 2k/5k/5k (SB/BB/BBA). I have 135k; starting stack is 100k. Registration just closed.
The Hand:
Hand History: My Poker Coaching Replayer
It folds to Thomas Muhlocker who raises to 10k off of 125k in the CO. I defend 7♦️3♦️ in the BB
Flop (27k) T♠️7♥️3♦️: I check, Thomas checks.
Turn (27k) T♠️7♥️3♦️5♥️: I bet 30k, Thomas calls.
River (87k) T♠️7♥️3♦️5♥️Q♦️: I shove for Thomas’s last 85k, Thomas folds.
What was I thinking during the hand?
I have a suited hand that pure defends preflop, and ten high boards never get leads from the BB. Even though this hand took place two years ago, I can easily remember what I was thinking: “I have two pair and he checked the flop; I’m going to keep betting until I’m all-in.” A good heuristic in all forms of NLHE is: If you are in the big blind and the preflop raiser checks back the flop, you play aggressively on most turns, especially with good hands. The preflop raiser often has a middle-of-range hand that can bluff catch, but isn’t necessarily interested in value betting. So you force them to put money in the pot. It’s not hard to find bluffs as the BB: I have a wide array of flush draws, two-card straight draws and one-card straight draws that can semi-bluff on the turn. The Q♦️ river is not great for my range; overcards usually aren’t good for the BB, but with only pot to play, I’m still allowed to continue value betting two pair-plus and happily shove for value.
What I got wrong
I aced the difficult preflop and flop nodes with my expert play. On the turn, I got the shape of my strategy correct: I bet a lot and my most common sizes are on the larger end. The errors I made were in hand selection. Thomas’s flop check-back range does have a lot of middle of range hands: One of the more common middle of range hands that checks back the flop and calls a turn bet is a 7x; another lower-frequency, but still present, hand is 3x. When I have 73 I’m blocking around 5% of his turn calling range. I thought I would be betting the turn for value, but also protection; what I failed to realize was my hand needs very little protection. Sure, there are bad rivers for my hand-- 4, 5, 6, T, heart is almost half the deck-- but hands that aren’t drawing dead vs. two pair rarely fold the turn. There is value in charging those hands, but checking two pair is more likely to let a hand that is drawing dead catch up or bluff than it is to let a hand that would fold to a bet suck out on me, because he has a lot more unpaired no-draw hands like AK high or K♦️6♦️.
Types of Errors
Defaulting to a lazy play
Underestimating how much equity I had
Grade: Shoveling money in the pot with a hand that is good enough to stack off can never be that costly a mistake and is often a strong exploit vs loose-passive players. It’s not a costly play, but slowplaying flopped bottom two is an easy mechanic to internalize, and one I could have figured out if I were playing my A-game. B-