The Crade of True Art and True Science

YTD: +$52786.73

I did promise a hand about AA some time ago. Well here it is. The last time we looked at AA is was where a player seemingly overdefended his hand and made a weak call. Although the outcome in this hand is the same - I call - hopefully you will agree that the reasoning and situation is much more sound.

PokerStars Pot-Limit Omaha High, $10 BB (9 handed) converter

saw flop|saw showdown

CO ($632.50)
Button ($261)
SB ($1070)
Hero ($2489.75)
UTG ($390)
UTG+1 ($205)
MP1 ($1083)
MP2 ($57.25)
MP3 ($1516.50)


Preflop: Hero is BB with Th, Ah, Ac, 7s.
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $10, 3 folds, CO calls $10, 1 fold, SB raises to $50, Hero raises to $140, UTG+1 folds, CO folds, SB calls $90.

I'm not a big fan of raising with any hand out of position. But there are some big advantages to be had here. SB is a tight, solid player and is actually likely to be raising with one of the hands I can dominate, e.g. a high pair-ish hand. Also a reraise is likely to push out the limpers and actually give me position on the whole coup.

Flop: ($300) Ts, 2c, 4d (2 players)

SB checks, Hero bets $230, SB raises to $930, Hero calls $700.

When I completely miss a flop I do not always auto bet it, simply because it gives good players the opportunity to check raise me thin out of the hand, figuring that my reraise must mean aces. As faithful readers will have noticed, this is not always the case, but it will still be their most likely view of my holding. In this case I felt that the flop was fairly safe for a bet and SB thought for some time before check raising me.

Now sometimes the pause check raise is a sure fire tell of "let me think while I raise with the nuts". But in this case it is very difficult for my foe, if I have read him right, to have trips. It is very unlikely, if next to impossible for him to have a draw, or even two pair. And the ten in my hand nicely makes the top trip scenario unlikely too. As a contributing factor, just a few hands before I had wiped him out, raising with suited aces, hitting the nut flush on the flop and he had check raised me with the K high flush. So he was potentially in the mood for revenge and he was good enough to be making a move.

So after some thought I decided that either he had me strangled or I had him strangled, on which basis it must be a fairly straightforward call for better than 2 to 1 money.

Turn: ($2160) 3d (2 players)

River: ($2160) 3h (2 players)

Final Pot: $2160
Main Pot: $2160, between SB and Hero.
Results
SB has Kc Tc Ad Kd (two pair, kings and threes).
Hero has Th Ah Ac 7s (two pair, aces and threes).

Outcome: Hero wins $2160.

Afterwards I did some more of my infamous EV analysis, which I may write up later - I just can't get the damn tables in. It showed that the breakeven point, where calling was neutral, was with SB having trips a massive 65% of the time, assuming my "he has few outs or I have few outs" analysis was correct. Clearly, based on my read of the player, this was a hugely profitable call.

Science and Art in the same bed again! Who would have thought it?