The Power of the Button

Replay Poker Poker Strategy
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So here’s the hand Big Pot

Just a word about the villain ~ I had to be very careful and disciplined with him on my left as he had shoved and won early (tournament) and had this big stack and was jamming it quite often both pre and post. Not only that but for the entire first hour neither of us moved tables! At the time of this hand we’d been side-by-side 40-50 minutes.

Pre-flop ~ K7s is one of those overvalued hands that I’m wary of. It’s what I call a 1-up-1-down hand - one good card with one unconnected weak card. However, it’s suited and I have the button. I don’t mind playing it in position, out of position I almost always fold it. Still, not being sneaky, I open standard. Villain calls. Good so far.

Flop ~ I check mid pair and he checks back. This is a good sign because he’s aggro and I don’t have to stack off yet (thank God). Pot control is good when villain has you covered 3-times over. I expect him to bluff any scare card on later streets.

Turn ~ Trips 7s and the board is pretty dry. The only thing that I’m afraid of is spades, but he’s been passive (for once) so I’m certain he has nothing (except his stack). He min bets. I’m surprised. I thought that he’d shove me (was hoping actually) so I just came overtop min. I guess that I don’t want him to fold. I want him to shove but if he doesn’t, he still might if the river bricks. He re-raises small. I think, “@#$% it! I want his chips!” and jam him. Villain calls. (fist pump)

River, pure overkill. Cha-ching! Turns out he had a straight draw on the flop which he had actually lost on the turn, but he does have 2-pair.

Some questions:

1 ~ Looking back, I was concerned with those spades, yet then villain’s small bet sizing didn’t make me think draw. Maybe it should have (hey we only get 15 seconds to act!). Do you think that I should have just jammed that turn straight away rather than trying to induce value? Then again, he might have folded. I really had it in for this guy frustrating the @#$% out of me for 45 minutes. I mean I wasn’t foaming at the mouth or throwing things (I’m actually quite good at not tilting) but I had this quiet vendetta. Maybe I was taking it too personal? I don’t have to out-clever him, I just have to beat him.

2 ~ What do you think his thought process was on that turn with a pair of 9s and 7s? I guess he thought that he had improved to 2 pair and had boat equity. Still, when one of your pairs is on the board and there’s still an overcard, it’s not as strong as it looks. Perhaps he was sleepy from lazily shoving his indestructible stack in people’s faces for 40 minutes and I caught him napping? I admit that that turn is a tough spot for villain. I’m glad that I wasn’t him but this brings me to the point of the thread.

I wasn’t him because I HAD POSITION! : D Feeel tha powahh of tha button! I would not have played this hand out of position and since villain was on my left, the only time that I had position was on the button (6-max is once in every 5 hands). He was very difficult for a long time, but I was patient and disciplined and I got him with the button! This was the most satisfying hand that I’ve had in years, maybe ever.

How did it end? ~ Not long after this hand another fairly large stack moved from a broken table to sit on my right. He was fairly aggro too. It was very tough between the two of them, having to keep very very disciplined. New guy on my right ended up felting aggro-guy on my left on the very last hand before the break. We played 1 hand after the break and the table broke. (hah!) I eventually finished up 7th out of 91 and cashed 18.9k on a 7.5k ticket. Did pretty good but I want more. ; ) Pretty happy though. Not complaining.

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Nice hand!

My thoughts:
-there is increasing support for the viability of suited Kx in late position. Certainly from the button it’s hard to fault your play preflop. We could quibble over sizing or wring our hands over the relatively shallow stack depth, but other than Villain everyone else is similarly short. So I don’t see anything wrong with taking a flop with K7s at least sometimes.

-agree that if you’re going to play it, raising is better than limping behind most of the time. Hero’s hand plays much better HU or against 2 opponents than it does against 4 or 5. Worth noting here that the other villains in the hand should absolutely be playing shove/fold preflop when the action comes back to them after your raise, but here we are lol.

-flop check-check makes sense for both of you. Villain is playing in flow, checking to the PFR, and Hero can mix check/cbet with 2nd pair good kicker on a pretty dry board.

-I have no idea what he’s doing on the turn. This is madness. I understand he can put you on hands like say AsJs so I guess bet-3bet isn’t too far afield yet, but calling the 4bet jam is REALLY optimistic with top pair weak kicker and missed backdoor straight. Such a line would have made more sense on the flop if he chose to donk bet, since all his equity is still live and it’s not hard to imagine you could just be cbetting too often with high cards that missed the flop. I’m gonna guess he just felt top pair was good, wanted to check-raise the flop, and refused to reassess on the turn when you kept putting more chips in the middle (hence donk-3bet-call 4bet jam). Definitely looks like he could’ve benefited from a juice box and a nap :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

-why be concerned with spades in the first place? flush hasn’t come in yet and is less than 20% to complete on the river. we should be dreaming about getting spades to put more chips in the pot, as many as you like, yee-haw!

-in sum I really like the way you played this, though I might have gone a bit bigger both preflop and on the initial turn raise. It’s not clear to me what the minraise is meant to accomplish, other than getting a 9 to level itself and spazz out reading the minraise as weak (in which case, good job, mission accomplished lol). I think there are plenty of pair+draw combos Villain could have on the turn that are happy to call/at least reluctant to fold to a significantly larger raise, and if he hadn’t chosen to own himself here he might have gotten away pretty cheap on some rivers.

Spades for instance would both open the door for him to bluff OOP, putting you in an awkward Way Ahead/Way Behind spot, and might kill your action if he chooses to check-evaluate river instead. Overcards without a spade are also going to make it harder for you to get paid on the river, as based on his line it seems likely he thinks you had many such hands in your range. Betting into you after you check behind flop suggests you’ve effectively underrepped your hand AND that Villain is reasonably happy with his hand, so it seems like a great spot to try to get the money in. Minraise won’t achieve that as often as a larger size will, I think, even though in this instance it worked out anyway.

-yay for position! YOU HAVE THE POWAAAA

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Further thought that just occurred to me: you almost certainly bought yourself extra value, maybe a lot extra, by choosing to raise pre instead of limping behind. Seems clear that made it a lot harder for Villain to give you much 7x. I think discounting 7x heavily he ended up assigning you a bunch of sketchy spades. Oopsie! CHA CHING!

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Good point. He was probably comfortable with his strategy and didn’t adjust well to the change in the street, but who knows? Just take it as a lesson to always pay attention to the changes. If you don’t have nuts, good cards can sometimes turn bad in a hurry.

You’re right. I should have just shoved him on that turn instead of going for value. I knew that I was ahead and I really really REALLY wanted to stack with him. I didn’t want him to fold. I should have been more careful and just shoved. If I lose, I’m felted. His stack is HUGE. I can’t afford to get bluffed off with a spade.

Because it’s a tournament and if he has it and hits it I’m felted.

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My point with the turn sizing is not to deny spades; it’s to extract max value from spades. Yes we want to avoid busting but we can’t be too “scared money” or we’ll leave too much value on the table and win 1st place a lot less than we otherwise might.

I’m not suggesting to be more careful; I’m suggesting to be more ambitious :money_mouth_face:

I find personally that “why did I bet small when I could have gone big and still conceivably gotten a call” is one of my most frequently recurring regrets when I fail to win a tournament.