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More top advice on studying your opponents, from resident Omaha expert Noel Hayes.
This month I am going to examine what I feel to be a very interesting hand. Both my opponent and myself are playing deep relative to the blinds and we have a lot of history together. At the time this hand took place (November, 2008) I had played maybe 5,000 hands with this guy in the previous week or so. I rated this opponent highly – he was a good thinking player who seemed to be a little on the tight side. He was certainly one of the top three regulars in the player pool at this time.
So let’s get onto the hand in question and then we will examine both how I played it, how my opponent played it and hopefully we can take some lessons from it.
EXAMPLE #1
GAME: $1/$2 PLO CASH
MY STACK: $555
MY HAND: Kc Kh 5c 5d
Pre-flop
The under-the-gun player who is playing $310 makes a pot sized raise to $7, the cut-off playing $345 calls, I call and my main opponent in this hand calls from the big blind.
Flop - Ks Qd 8s (Pot $29)
Everybody checks to me and I bet $26 into the pot of $29. My opponent calls from the Big Blind and everyone else folds.
Turn - Qs (Pot $81)
My opponent times down a long way and bets $50 into the pot of $81. I call.
River – 9s (Pot $181)
My opponent times down a long way and bets $134 into the pot of $181. I call.
My opponent shows Qh Qc 9d 6h for quad queens to beat my top full house.
ANALYSIS
Some questions are raised here, especially why I didn’t raise either the turn or river for value, so lets examine the play on a street-by-street basis.
Pre-flop: Playing 5-handed there is nothing unusual about any of my opponents play here. However, my own play should be called into question. I have a very strong hand and equally important I also have the benefit of position. Given the stack sizes in play I really should have put in a re-raise from the button.
The smallest stack in play on the table was $310. I don’t need to put in a pot-sized re-raise but there is considerable merit in raising to $20 - $22. This serves a couple of purposes. It is going to cause my opponents to play an inflated pot with me out of position. Given the stack sizes I am placing the big stacks of my opponents in jeopardy. In short I am taking them out of their comfort zone, a key ingredient to success.
Flop: I have flopped the nuts and bet accordingly when checked to me. My play here is just about as standard as you get. My opponent calls from the BB with middle set, no re-draw. This may seem somewhat strange to some people - he has flopped a big hand but has no re-draw. There are many cards which can fall on the turn that can leave him drawing very thin for glory, especially in a multi-way pot. Any A, J, 10, 9 or spade is a bad card for him.
I can’t say with certainty but I guess my opponent’s plan was to wait for a safe turn card before building a pot and playing for stacks – if say a 2c falls on the turn my opponents hand is still the 2nd best but the relative strength of it increases greatly. If we were 100 big blinds deep then he could set the world alight on the flop and not feel bad about the outcome of the hand however when we are 220 big blinds deep there is a lot of merit in protecting your stack. At this point he also doesn’t know how the other 2 remaining players in the pot will react to the action before them. As it transpired they both folded.
Turn: Bingo! From my perspective that is the first thought that came to my mind. However at this point I had considerable table time with my opponent and my heart sank as my second reaction was that of disappointment as I figured I get little value from my opponents flop check/calling range. My next reaction was shock, that’s exactly what I felt when my opponent timed down and bet small into the pot.
At this juncture let’s do two things – firstly let me expand on my opponent’s general playing style and game, and secondly, let’s have a think about the hands he is likely to check call a flop bet with.
I rated my opponent highly, definitely a very competent player. I also figured him to be tight and unlikely to pay off with worse made hands on dangerous boards (i.e. I would not expect him to pay me with a set on a flush board or pay me off with a flush on a paired board). I also had a note that he timed down on the river before betting 2/3rds pot with the nuts.
As for his flop check/calling range I figured it had to include 2-pair hands, smaller sets, nut flush draw hands and flush draw/straight draw combo hands – he was not the sort of player to call out of position with A-J-10-x with no spade in his hand – further enforcing my view that he was a solid player.
However his flop check/calling range can be further refined into a range of hands that he would proceed to bet this particular turn card with. This was a lot narrower. He certainly wasn’t leading the turn with any flush now that the board had paired so I immediately discounted flushes from his range.
From there the only hand he could have had was be a flopped set or 2-pair that has now made a house. I accept that he is likely to play the strong portion of this range fast i.e. K-Q-x-x and Q-Q-x-x, and err on the side of pot control, check-call the turn and bet-call or bet-fold the river, with the weaker portion i.e. Q-8-x-x and 8-8-x-x. This was especially true considering the stack sizes.
By deduction I have narrowed his range to two holdings – K-Q-x-x and Q-Q-x-x. Given that I hold K-K-x-x it reduces the possible combinations of K-Q-x-x type hands that he can have. (As a note here I must add that it is important to understand that range distributions are not linear but this may be the topic of another article.)
Now let us return again to my understanding of the player and the notes which I have on him. In this instance he timed down and bet a little under 2/3rd the pot; previously I had noted that he did this with the nuts. Furthermore this betting pattern was largely alarming, he normally defaulted to near pot-sized bets and he normally acted pretty quick when it was his turn to act - timing down without good reason certainly wasn’t in his playbook.
I had to ask myself should I raise either the turn or the river for value? Well, what value was there in raising? He folds all worse hands to a raise, furthermore on the turn if he happens to be on a flyer and is deciding to run a bluff, by raising I deny him the opportunity to bluff again on the river.
River: Again he times down and bets a curious amount. For the reasons stated above there is no value in raising. It should be noted that there is now a possible straight flush on the board but I discount this almost entirely as he finds it very difficult to get to the river as played with any x-x-Js-10s combinations.
Top Tips and Lessons Learned:
1. Don’t let your playing style change according to your holding. Just because you have the nuts it doesn’t mean your opponent knows this. If you bet full-pot with strong combo draws then be sure to bet full-pot with the nuts.
2. As soon as you do something that is outside of your normal playing pattern then you are telegraphing some information to your opponents.
3. Perhaps I played this hand badly; maybe I should have raised but I reached my decisions based on a range of information and table time with my opponent. Overriding all of this the hand is a good example of why it pays to study and understand your opponents, their playing style and the general game flow. |
