Mystery Hand : And the winners are...

Thanks to everyone that played in the hand. Before giving the results, we asked @Nicolas Levi , top pro and poker mentor to give us his thoughts on the hand and how Sam played it:

@Nicolas Levi:

Preflop:

The plan to be aggressive is ok in theory, but with 20 big blinds there’s just not enough room to wiggle and be creative postflop. I would raise with medium pairs (77+) and strong suited connectors (TJs+) and good broadway cards (KJs+). I drop Aces below AJ unless I feel super confident with a very small suited ace, giving me more options postflop.

Flop:

This is a tough one. One the one hand we only get one caller, but on the other hand we have a flop texture that isn’t perfect.
Option 1: Betting small:
Some people like to CBet here and there’s nothing really wrong with that, in this case you should be really small (6 to 11k). You’re not making him fold if he has a draw or a good pair anyway, unless you go all in and risk 56k to win 24k with almost no info, that’s just not good poker.

Option 2: Checking

Checking is my play here: because I usually barrel on the flop, it makes my oppenents suspicions when I don’t. They revert to play abc in order to minimize risk. t’s almost impossible for villainto check back a draw or a pair on this board anyway, so really you’re getting a ton of information for free. If he bets you probably would have lost anyway and get away cheaper, if he checks back you have a green light to steal on the turn with a much high success rate!

Now Sam hasn’t got this aggressive image on day 2, meaning both options are roughly equal.

Turn:

My play: Bet big
The key to play the turn is this: with our small bet on the flop, vilains can put us on a draw, nothing, a medium pair. He would raise all in his strong hands or even strong draws most of the time, hoping to protect or semibluff. Because he didn’t, we can safely assume he has some of the weakest hands that don’t fold, maybe a jack, or a low draw. Whatever he has he doesn’t like it so much. I bet big enough to stop his curiosity. 20k makes me feel really committed and if it doesn’t work, I might just stop here, depending on my read and the last card.

Conclusion:

I think Sam made a mathematical error opening preflop, but he showed a lot of skills and courage postflop to get out of a tough spot. My hat’s off to him: I have much more respect for people that try to change gears and stay cool than people that play it safe all the time :) Cool hand Sam!

Best Analyses:

Overall Winner @GregHPoker wins €100 of cash game tickets for his Round 2 analysis. Greg’s thought process iss very technical .. and spot on. Greg considers his range, his image, and what different betting amounts would accomplish to make the best of a bad situation. Strong poker here. Here are some extracts.

@GregHPoker :

Preflop: fold

[...] we severely butchered the hand the begin with leaving ourselves in a terrible spot. [...] with 20 Bigs we should be "switching it up" like this approximately never.

Flop: bet

As played, if we both had 100 BB stacks we should always be CBetting this board. We have backnut flush draws and straight draws, its a texture where we shouldn't be getting raised very often (we block nut flush draw a [...] Most of the time we are just gunna bet and take it down [...] We also are in a good spot to triple barrell a lot of run outs putting opponent to tough decisions bc if he calls his range is capped while ours is not… With 20 Bigs it's less than ideal, [...] but our plan shouldn't change and we should still CBet for the reason this board hits us harder than it hits them…

Bet size

[...] assuming we opened to 8k I'd bet somewhere in the 9k neighborhood, i believe it accomplishes the same thing as 15k. It also leaves us 47k behind in a 42kish pot, so that we can shove a lot of turns and put opponent (w the same stack size) to a tough decision for all his chips against an unknown UTG raiser who has shown aggression

Special mention to: @Gh0sT , @William Calder , @Alessio Bianchi ; @Pic0l0 , they all win €20 of cash game tickets on Unibet.com

#UnibetHand