Top pair medium kicker on paired board, PokerStars Sunday Million

DailyHandQuiz

Game type: PokerStars Sunday Million
Stage of tourney: In the money, 120 remain
Avg stack: ~ 600k
Your image: Aggressive
Opponent’s image: Smaller buy in losing player
Your hand: A♥9♥

This hand is taken directly from game play in the Poker Stars Sunday Million on April 6th

The setup: You’ve been playing fairly strong with your slightly below average stack, and the table has been a little tight. This hand, you raise to about 2.25x the BB with your suited ace UTG+1 and the table folds to the BB, who calls.

The BB is a slightly passive player. You check his stats and find he’s a lower buy-in losing player. You miss the flop:

5♠J♣J♦

The BB checks and you check back. You pair the turn:

A♠

Now the BB leads for about half pot. You call and the river bricks with the 4♣. The BB checks. What’s your play?

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8 COMMENTS (Jump to comment form)

DHQ Staff

I think you need to get value out of this hand. I can’t see the BB checking a jack here, since it really looks like you have an ace and they’re not going to want to give you a free showdown. The BB might have an ace, but the lack of a PF re-raise seems to cut down on the chance of AK or AQ. That leaves you worrying about AT, but there’s also the chance they might have called your smallish PF raise with a weak suited ace.

Critical point: I don’t think this weakish player will ever check-raise you without a lock hand. I’d go ahead and make a bet they will have a hard time folding a worse ace or medium pocket pair to – probably about 60-80k.

What actually happened: The raiser checked and the BB showed 88.

[Reply]

kaimano

He has a weeeeeeak ace or nothing. I bet small and induce a call or a bluff-raise (unlikely from this opponent). I’m surprised he showed 88 because he should have bet the flop.

[Reply]

5types

Agree, value bet. Though I dont think he would call with a small pp.

[Reply]

catcher

One move that really should not occur to anyone is pushing . Checking behind here is a bit weak, it would be very unlikely way to play a J and big aces would probably have made some noise PF. 80k, about quarter of villain’s stack seems about right here.

[Reply]

OnlinePokerIncome.com

yeah, 50-100k should get the weaker ace and medium pocket pairs to call, easy chips

[Reply]

Thebigfinn

Check and move on. Two questions? What do you do if he raises back. Do you still think your Ace is good? What hand do you expect he will call you with?

IMHO, this is a case where the only hand that will call you will beat you. While a weak Ace is the most obvious, he could also easily have called with pocket 4s or 5s and been slow playing you.

[Reply]

Chad Gerson

I put him on the mid-size PP. I also say check and move on, but a value bet is fine here too, though it should be a smaller one than most have been saying–I say maybe $40-50K. Because I don’t see how you can call a raise.

[Reply]

kaimano

If he raises he has been tricky and lucky…but in the long run a value bet I think has the most positive expectation…pocket four and pocket fives are unlikely hands for him to have while a weak ace is much more probable…and he may call us even with something like KT thinking that we haven’t hit anything and are trying to buy the pot…

[Reply]