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Covering live poker tournaments for a living affords me the chance to peer countless thousands of hands played out, a lot of which give interesting and potentially valuable insights into how players — both amateurs and professionals — play the sport. On this ongoing series, I’ll highlight hands I’ve seen on the tournaments I’ve covered and notice if we will glean anything useful from them.

The Scene

Another week, another hand from the $365 reentry event on the World Series of Poker Circuit Horseshoe Council Bluffs stop.

At this point within the tournament, there have been around 35 players ignored of 743, and a player with an immense stack of around 500,000 had just gotten moved to my table. He was likely the chip leader and appeared within the early going to be playing rather loose and aggressive. I had about 200,000 with the blinds at 4,000/8,000/1,000.

The Action

Action folded to me within the cutoff, and that i put 13,000 in with , thinking the blinds were still on the previous level. I USED TO BE forced to make it 16,000 to go, and the loose-aggressive player with the massive stack defended his big blind.

The flop came , and my opponent checked to me. I checked back. The turn was the , and my opponent checked to me again. I bet 15,000 and he called. At the river, my opponent checked a last time and that i bet 18,000. He made it 61,000, and that i called.

The big blind showed for ace-high, and the flush was good.

Concept and Analysis

To start this hand off, I make a reasonably borderline open with . This hand is an automated open for me more often than not within the cutoff, but against a player who's defending wide and playing aggressively postflop out of the massive blind, it may be tricky to play as it will make numerous mediocre and weak pairs.

However, I'm still pretty confident I WILL make good decisions postflop in contrast player, and is a great flop for me that I choose to check back because I'VE a pleasant draw and do not wish to get installed a difficult spot by a raise.

When the hits the turn and my opponent checks again, I figure it is time to go ahead and bet. For one thing, he would more than likely bet at this point if he had anything. For another, my hand has little showdown value. Finally, it's what I'D do with quite a few decent value hands like .

My opponent calls, but my read hasn't changed. I'm still putting him on a weak hand like ace-high or a small pair. So, once I hit my flush at the river, what is the best option to attempt to get value from my hand against a weak range?

I decided to make an excessively small underbet, 18,000 right into a pot of around 75,000. For one thing, it's possible my opponent could pay the bet off with a hand as weak as ace-high. But against an aggressive player, there's one more reason: it would induce a check-raise bluff if he doesn't think he can call and win, but thinks he could possibly get me to fold.

Sure enough, my opponent came out raising and that i quickly snapped it off with the flush as he dumped his ace-six airball into the muck. I DON'T BELIEVE raising the river is truly much of an option, as his bluffs will just fold and there is probably not anything weaker with which I WILL see him calling.

I also think my accidental min-raise will have helped me here as my opponent will have been more inclined to position me on a weaker hand.

Overall, it is a good example of ways underbetting a robust hand against tricky, aggressive players can yield profits by inducing them to boost as a bluff. This player ended up blasting off his first-place stack briefly order and never even making the 27-player redraw.

Unfortunately, it didn't help me much in any case — as detailed in last week's article, I fizzled out shortly after the redraw myself and busted 20th.

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