In this month’s examination, you are sitting in a game of No Limit Texas Hold’em at the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas. It is a cash game with $25-$50 blinds and some very tough loose aggressive players are sat in this game. You have been sat down for about an hour and you have been playing very solidly and haven’t been flying around with junk.
The players stacks are as follows,
SEAT 1: $12,000 (Loose Aggressive)
SEAT 2: $10,000 (Loose Aggressive)
SEAT 3: $53,500 (Tight Aggressive)
SEAT 4: $ 1,750
SEAT 5: $ 600
SEAT 6: $ 6,000 (YOU)
SEAT 7: $ 1,275 (Button)
SEAT 8: $27,000 (Small Blind)
SEAT 9: $ 3,200 (Big Blind)
The notes on the players in seats one, two and three are based on what you have observed during your time on the table and are included because they are relevant to this hand. You are situated in the cut-off with a stack of $6,000 which is 120 Big blinds and is a healthy sizeable stack but you are well short of having all of the players covered who are on your table.
The loose aggressive player in SEAT 1 raises to $150 and the other loose aggressive player in SEAT 2 calls as does the tight aggressive player in SEAT 3. It is folded around to you in the cut-off position and you hold the 7d-5d. What is your play Maverick?
| Call | 10 pts |
| Fold | 5 pts |
| Re-Raise | 2 pts |
There is nothing wrong with folding as your hand is weak but the other players all have stacks that are bigger than yours so your pay off should you hit could be a handsome one. $150 is only 2.5% of your total stack and this is an acceptable percentage of chips to risk in a situation like this. Your hand is also well disguised and is likely to be live compared to the other players hands.
Also your hand is very easy to play from the flop onwards as if you fail to connect then you can easily make a lay down against any kind of betting action.
Re-raising may get the respect of the other players because of the fact that you have been playing so solidly. But there are two loose aggressive players in this hand and a tight solid player who has likely called with a good hand so why ask for trouble? You call and both blinds fold leaving the four of you and $675 in the pot. As a side issue, what would you do with the 7d-5d if you only had a $1000 on the table?
| Fold | 10 pts |
| Call | 3 pts |
| Re-Raise All In | 2 pts |
| Re-Raise | 1 pt |
$150 is 15% of your stack and far to much to risk with a speculative hand like this. Folding is the only sensible option in a cash game and raising is suicide!
The flop comes Ks-3c-4h giving you nothing but a gut-shot straight draw. The stack sizes are as follows,
SEAT 1: $11,850
SEAT 2: $ 9,850
SEAT 3: $53,350
SEAT 6: $ 5,850 (YOU)
Seat 1 who is first to speak fires out $350 into the $675 pot and the tight aggressive player in Seat 3 calls. With $1375 in the pot, what are you going to do here then Mr Bond with nothing but an inside straight draw to your name?
| Call | 10 pts |
| Raise | 3 pts |
| Fold | 3 pts |
Calling is perfectly acceptable here especially as the tight aggressive player could be slow playing a possible set judging by the way that he has played his hand. This is a mistake by the way because it lets you call because of your implied odds which is what you go by in No Limit. Ignore the fact that you are only getting roughly 4-1 from the pot and your draw is 11-1 to go in.
In Limit Hold’em this would be a clear fold but you possibly stand to win an awful lot of money should you make your hand because of how disguised it is and the possible strength of your opponents hand. Folding is not a disaster but it does fail to take into consideration the dynamics of the situation. Raising is asking for trouble, it could get re-raised all in and then you will have to fold losing the chance to possibly make your hand and triple up.
The turn card is the 6c completing your inside straight draw, the board is now Ks-3c-4h-6c and the stack sizes are as follows.
SEAT 1: $11,500
SEAT 3: $53,000
SEAT 6: $ 5,500 (YOU)
The loose aggressive player in Seat 1 CHECKS and the player in Seat 3 fires $1500 into the $1725 pot which is not far short of being the pot. You are sitting there with the nuts at this stage, what is your play?
| Raise All In | 10 pts |
| Call | 6 pts |
It looks like the player in Seat 3 has a set, the reasoning is as follows. A tight solid player is unlikely to play a hand like K-3, K-4 or 3-4 and especially from early position. With K-K, he would have raised before the flop. A-A, A-K, Q-Q would all be pre-flop raises for him as well. If he held no hand on the flop then he would have folded to the flop bet with other players to speak after him. A hand like KQ suited or maybe KJ suited would have also prompted a flop raise.
If he held a marginal hand like 10-10 then he would have raised to find out where he stood and used his stack to pressure the lesser stacks. His style coupled with the way that he ahs played the hand indicated that he called the small raise with 3-3 or 4-4 which is perfectly sound and he has elected to slow play his hand.
Many people would reason that if I was so sure that he held this hand then why not just call so that if the board paired on the river, I could fold and save my money. The point is that there are many cards that could come that would kill my action stone dead. Another club or straight card would frighten him into not calling to much money or evening laying it down. If you are afraid of losing money or being outdrawn in No Limit hold’em then you have no place being in games of this size.
If he calls with a set then I am a big favourite as he only has ten outs with one card to come and a raise also gets rid of the loose aggressive player in Seat 1 who I could still lose this pot to. I raised all in and the player in Seat 1 folded with the player in Seat 3 calling in an instant. He did indeed flip over pocket fours, the river card brought a Queen and I scooped a $12,725 pot.
SCORE:
40 I only have one thing to say……….WOW!
30-39 Pretty Good, keep away from my table!
20-29 Better put some more work in on your game!
10-19 Stick to small games
0-10 If you were searching for the mug on the table you can stop searching now because it’s you.
This quiz was compiled for the official magazine of the televised WORLD POKER TOUR and has been reproduced here with their kind permission.
