Do you bet with the nuts? You’ve got an unbeatable hand, so obvioulsy you’re fixing to win some sort of money, but should you let your opponent hang his/herself instead? This is the topic of discussion for today’s article, and while there may not be one correct way to play this type of situation, there may be a more proper way to extract money from your opponent in the long haul.
A prime example of this situation was a hand I got involved in today, and it’s a hand that I really don’t feel I could have played any better. Towards the end of the first hour of a tournament, I was dealt QJ in middle position and limped with it (ok, that may’ve been a bit of a weak play). Three other players entered the pot including the big blind who was already in. The flop came out QJ4. The SB and BB checked, and I checked as well, hoping the last player may take a stab at the pot with a position bet. He/she did not, however, so we saw another card. The turn was an A, and it put two of one suit on the board. The SB immediately bet the pot, so I instantaneously eliminated the one hand I thought could beat me, 10 K, because why would you bet the nuts in early position here?
That being said, I decided to raise anyway because I wanted to punish my opponent for drawing (I thought he was on a flush draw at this point). Even if he wasn’t drawing and had a made hand, I figured it must be a rag two pair, in which case I had a hammerlock on the hand. Long story short, we ended up all in on the turn, and he flipped 10 K. Nuts. Fantastic. No help came on the river and I was eliminated from the tournament.
Two things to take away from this example are:
1. Notice the fact that he was first to act. If you have an unbeatable hand with multiple players in the pot, especially more than three, you have an excellent probability that someone else involved in the hand got a piece of that turn. Many players like to play A X, in which case, they just hit their top pair. Why not let them bet out instead, in other words, let them do all the work for you. Let them commit themselves and their chips to the hand, and then raise them on the river when they are too deep in the hand to get out.
If you are worried about a flush drawer in this case, chances are that player will bet, and then you can pop him/her back with a check raise. Not only does this force the player to commit even more chips to the pot in order to hit a draw, it shows that player that your hand is really strong.
2. Knowing your opponent could be a huge help in this situation. I’ve made a note on this opponent so if I ever face the same situation again, I will know what to do. I had never seen this player’s betting pattern while in possession of the nuts, so I just assumed that he was like the majority of poker players who liked to be sneaky with the nuts. In other words, I was playing the percentages. If you are lucky enough to see what this player does when in possession of the nuts early in the tournament, you could very possibly save your tournament life by making a correct read and laying a big hand down later on in the tournament.
In this case, I overthought and his move paid huge dividends for him. Maybe I’m just blowing a bunch of smoke up your butt after all! In all honesty though, I do feel that while there might not be one correct way to play this type of situation, you tend to maximize your profits going the route of the slowplay.
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October 12th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
Interesting hand, but the real problem is that you let him hit his card. I think with a vulnerable two pair, you have to make that bet on the flop. That said, I understand that this was not the point of the hand, so no big deal.
Actually, I recently posted a post titled You Decide #44 where I dealt with extracting the maximum amount of chips when you flop a strong hand, but your opponents likely missed. In that case, my 33 hit the 3hAhKx flop, but the only players were the SB and BB, and they seemed to have missed entirely. I opted to make small, suspicious looking bets on every street, and essentially priced the SB (with A2o) into the hand. The other player actually commented about what he was thinking during the hand, so it’s a very interesting discussion.