$100 NLHE Full Ring: Turning Pocket Aces into a Bluff on the river...interesting hand scenario

[tofushit888]

$100 NLHE Full Ring: Turning Pocket Aces into a Bluff on the river...interesting hand scenario

Hey guys! I have a super interesting hand scenario here that happened during a live game and welcome any thoughts/inputs on how each player should have played their hand.


It was a 8-handed game with blinds of HKD 5/10 (US$0.65 / US$1.30). Highlight is that a friend of mine turned his Aces into a bluff on the river and managed to fold out 2 villains who had a better hand.

Everyone's effective stack: Around HKD1800-2000 so 180-200BB

UTG: Qd-7d
HJ: As-Ac
CO: 8h-9c
SB: 8c-9h

Preflop Action: UTG opens for 30, HJ 3bets to 90, CO calls, SB calls and UTG calls (lollll). Pot: 365

Board: 10 spade -7 heart -7 spade

Board Action: SB donks out for 100, UTG calls, HJ calls and CO calls. Pot: 765

Turn: 6 of spade. The dirtiest card in the deck? SB continues for 220, UTG calls, HJ calls. Now action is back on CO who thought about it for awhile but he ended up folding his straight... Pot: 1425

River: 9 of diamond. SB now checks, UTG also checks, HJ rips it all in for 1200, effectively turning his aces into a bluff. So pot is now 2625. SB is sick to the stomach and wants a count of the chips, but ended up folding. UTG thinks about it as well... but folds.

Some questions:
1. Is turning Aces into a bluff on that river a good play? He had the Ace of spade, which blocks nut flush, which was a key consideration I think. Could also rep all the full-houses and even quad given SB and UTG checked the river to him
2. The CO player's fold on the turn surprised me a bit but I can also understand his reasoning of being scared of full-house and flushes (given how the action played out). Should CO player raise the turn instead?
3. SB's fold on the river is fine I think given he still had UTG player behind him and his straight loses to quite a few combos of flushes, full houses, and even quad. But would you call in his spot?
4. If you had UTG player's hand, should fold on the turn?

If you want to see this hand in live action, check out my latest poker vlog (04:26 - 7:00):

Thanks!

 

[gustav197poker]

Regarding the UTG hand opener, if this player opens with Q7s, he is opening more than half of the combos suits from that position. This is not a problem, as long as UTG can expand its fold equity range and provide it for its wide opening range. For example: UTG must be willing to fold more times his top pair of queens, with respect to the times that he has the same hand but with a better kicker, etc.
When SB calls, UTG only pays for the implied odds, but it is still a very thin call and I am more in agreement with fold preflop.
As for the villains CO and SB, their calls on pre are marginal. For example, a super aggressive villain from UTG might jam a random hand like JTo with the aim of knocking down these players and isolating himself with HJ's wide range, when he thinks his worst result is a coin toss against this player. The times that he think HJ has a 3-bet range with low-medium pockets like 22-99.
Regarding postflop actions, the SB line from the flop seems reasonable to me, and possibly all the players involved had an automatic click, given the proposed size. UTG didn't raise because he thought he didn't have fold equity on this texture, but that's a misperception, as the table has a lot of draws and he could easily represent the best ones, given his opener position.
On the turn, in my opinion, you can see more clearly the mistakes made by the players, in the previous stages of the hand.
SB's bet is very small, but given the texture of the board it could be interpreted that he is inducing raises to obtain value from dominated hands. UTG's call now goes fringe and HJ's call makes sense when he's willing to turn his hand into a bluff. Of course in a 4-way pot this gets a bit unbalanced, but from an exploitative perspective calling here allows for equally unbalanced folds when HJ assumes that the villains play too many hands in their ranges (as actually happened).
The 9d OTR is the street that HJ more needs for his bluff range. Obviously against balanced players, this is a negative of 100% EV bluff, since in this instance only stronger hands of bluffs and values ​​will have continued for this board texture.
Greetings.

 

[tofushit888]

Thanks Gustav for the helpful insights! Just curious what is your opinion about CO's hand on the turn, he folded his straight after seeing a bet, call call. Is that too tight of a fold? or should at least call one more street to see a river. Just felt like him calling on the flop and then hitting his straight on the turn but ended up folding = lost some value? but of course, for the reasons stated in my first post, his fold also makes some sense

Thx!

 

[gustav197poker]

Thanks Gustav for the helpful insights! Just curious what is your opinion about CO's hand on the turn, he folded his straight after seeing a bet, call call. Is that too tight of a fold? or should at least call one more street to see a river. Just felt like him calling on the flop and then hitting his straight on the turn but ended up folding = lost some value? but of course, for the reasons stated in my first post, his fold also makes some sense

Thx!

Yes, the CO OTT fold makes sense, because his hand is badly undervalued on this board. If CO raises on the turn, he won't get value from worse hands. And if he continues in this race after 3 villains have called, the situation will be very critical for CO, since his hand is very neutral and with no room for improvement. In my opinion CO's main mistake was calling 3-bet preflop. Similarly, a hand like 89o OTT should not exist in the SB range. These were mistakes that clearly allowed HJ's chosen bluff line to succeed. Blocking the ace of spades is bad on this turn, and possibly the closest line is fold here, considering that it is very likely that we are drawing dead, when the pot is multiway in this texture (we being HJ).

 

[tofushit888]

I see I see, I guess in a multi-way situation like this, its safer for CO to fold on the turn. Agree that 8-9 should be a fold preflop for both CO and SB. But as you can tell by now, the players in my home game play quite loose haha.

Cheers.