Hand Analysis

Read yesterdays hand for more info on the following :-

I had to think for a while on this hand and was pretty close to folding but because I was only playing 3 tables of 25/50 I had time to go through the actions again one more time.

The key to this hand in my opinion is the turn play in two ways, first off, how often does he lead into the raiser then check the turn with a Set or AK when I have showed weakness by only calling on the flop? If it was me, a check here would be very rare from me as the chances of my opponent checking behind me and getting a free card are too high. I think this severely limits the chance of him having a set or AK on the river. Not completely but too a decent degree.

Secondly because I check behind on the turn, I have showed extreme weakness as I would probably never check AK or better here and he knows that too. He now knows on the river when I minimum raise him that I cannot possibly have AK or better. In other words I will have a somewhat tough decision if he pushes all in here. Which of course turns out to be true.

The other piece of information I had was that he pushed all in on the river fairly instantly. The only hands he can do this with are AK, any set and of course a bluff. I felt like he couldn't push all in instantly with A6 or A8. At least I could never do that, I would have to think for at least a small amount of time with A6 or A8 to decide what to do. It is not impossible of course, but in my opinion makes it less likely overall for him to have A6 or A8. So that narrows it down to a bluff, AK or Set but I had already reduced the chance of him having AK or a Set on the turn as I already spoke about above. Once I got to this stage in thinking I instantly called.

He had KQ and was indeed bluffing on the river giving me the $12079 pot.

I decided to put some ranges of hands into Pokerstove to analyse this hand further.

I gave for his winning range AK, 66, 88, A6o and suited, A8o and suited which is far too generous as like I said he would only play stuff like AK or set on the turn like this a small amount of the time, this assume he plays it 100% like that.

For his bluffing range I put in KQo, KQs, 79s and 79o which of course assumes he will 100% bluff with these hands but this is the part that is very hard to guage. I think this is a pretty fair range as I am not including anything like XX of clubs, 57, 79s, 9T, 45, KJ and lower, 6x, 8x and other random holdings.

When you evaluate with these holdings my equity is 53.8% and his is 46.1%. Which of course turns this into a clear call. In fact you can take out 79o completely and the equity changes to 40% and 60%. Which as I have slightly better than 3/2 still makes this a call. Anyway, it can't be as close to this in my opinion.

What does this show in this hand? It shows if my opponent is capable of bluffing AT ALL in this spot then I have a clear call as you only need a tiny range of bluffs to turn this into a profitable call. When you weigh it up vs the evidence presented before it shrinks his winning range substantially vs his bluffing range.

Of course saying all that some people are not capable of bluffing in this way EVER and you could never be profitable vs them so be wary with hero calls vs certain players.