Here’s a nice hand:
I’m playing heads-up in a 3-max SNG, with the small stack, holding KJo on the button. I raise my SB from 25 to 4BB, 200 chips, and get 3-bet to 350 preflop, and decide to call.
Flop misses me, 8T2, two clubs for a backdoor to a King-high flush. V bets out 150 chips, and I don’t think they’ve hit this flop. With their 3-bet, I’m putting them on two high cards, almost certainly an Ace, if they don’t hold a pair, but I think if they had a pocket pair they most likely shove on my raise preflop, so I don’t really put them on a pair. Still, if they’re running a high Ace, I’m behind. I call, looking to hit the Turn or else I’m most likely done with this hand and looking at losing a big pot.
Turn is Qd, putting 8T2Q on the board, and ruining my backdoor flush draw, but opening up a OESD for me with TJQK, and it’s pretty well-disguised. V bets 250 into a pot of 1000, which is a lot to call, but if I give up here I’m basically all-in on whatever my next hand is and playing for a comeback that is long odds to happen. I decide to call and see what the river brings. I figure V has hit a pair on the Turn, but I still have one overcard plus my straight draw. I think about what I would have done if V had shoved on the Turn, and it’s about 50-50 whether I give up or call and pray.
9h on the River is the perfect card for me. The board doesn’t have any pairs and doesn’t have any more than 2 of any one suit. I not only have a 9-K straight, but there’s no way V can be holding an T-A straight over me on this board, because there’s no A on the board, and no K or J either. The best straights to have are where you need both of your hole cards to make it. Worst case I am chopping here if V also has KJ, otherwise, I am sitting on the nuts.
V bets, I raise all-in. V calls, shows AQ for top pair, top kicker, and I pull in all but 220 chips at the table.
Two hands later, I call an all-in from the now-short stack, holding J9o, and see he’s got KJo. He flops Kings on a suited board that has me drawing to a flush, which fills on the river, in defiance of Small Stack Invincibility, and I end up winning this one.