POTD #310 I Catch Kahle Burns's Bluff and Gain the Chip Lead
But did I play the hand well? (Photo: Danny Maxwell)
A lesson I remember being taught is that you shouldn’t bet the river unless you will have more than 50% equity when called. A correction to that lesson, which was taught to me by Brian “flawless_victory” Roberts, is that when you are out of position there are often times you’d rather bet and get called with less than 50% equity if the alternative is check-calling with even less equity. (I may have written about this previously on POTD, but it’s been 310 posts, cut me some slack.
Let’s say the board is KQ237 and you have 88. If you bet quarter pot OOP, you can get called by as weak as ace high. Let’s say overall when you bet quarter pot and are called, you have 40% equity. Let’s say the alternative is, you check, you face a full pot bet, and you have 34% equity. Well, pot odds dictate you need to call that river bet, but of course you’d rather put in quarter pot with 40% than full pot with 34%. It feels counter-intuitive to try to get money in the pot with the worst of it, but it’s better than the alternative.
Years after Brian taught me that lesson, I started toying with solvers and learned another application of that lesson. When a pot has grown and the stack-to-pot ratio is small, pot odds dictate you’ll often need to stack off a hand with less than 50% equity. If you have 2x pot to play, stacking off anything with more than 40% is often necessary. My instinct in these spots is that when I get money in the pot, I am getting it in with the worst of it, and that’s something to avoid. I am not entirely wrong: If I could click a button that magically made us check it down, I’d rather do that than get all-in for 2x pot with 42% equity, but what tends to happen is something similar to what I described above. If I check, my opponent will usually value bet better, they’ll occasionally bluff, and overall I’ll put money in the pot hoping my opponent is bluffing. If I bet myself, I can fold out some hands of my opponents that have equity, or I can get called by second-best hands that would rarely bet themselves. So by betting, I play a more linear strategy that guarantees I get money in the pot vs. hands slightly worse than mine, instead of closing my eyes and bluff-catching with less equity than if I bet myself.
Today’s hand is one that gave me the chip lead in a big tournament, but as I was playing the hand, I knew that I was playing scared on the turn. I did not want to get all-in, so I prayed that my opponent would co-operate and check it down. The problem is, when he co-operates with me, I usually have him beat; fortunately, I ran into a bluff on this day.
2019 EPT Prague Event #12 €50,000 EPT Super High Roller
(5k/10k/10k) (SB/BB/BBA) 250k Starting Stack. Registration is closed. 18 Left 6 Cash.
It folds to Kahle Burns (1.14M/114bbs) in the CO who makes it 20k, it folds to me in the SB with 8♠️8♣️ (788k) and I make it 100k, Kahle calls.
Flop (210k) 9♠️3♦️2♠️: I bet 125k, Kahle calls
Turn (460k) 9♣️: I check, Kahle bets 140k, I call.
River (740k) J♠️: I check, Kahle shoves for my 428k, I call; he had 6♦️5♦️ and I win.
