Sunday, June 21, 2009

Deepstacked with an overpair

In trying to improve my deepstacked game, I picked up a tip from an instructional video:

There's nothing wrong with not continuation betting an overpair out of position and check-calling down against an aggressive opponent. Many players in position when deepstacked will both value bet with worse and bluff when checked to.

If I were to continuation bet with the overpair when stacks are deep, there are many flops on which I'd be unnecessarily inflating the pot or setting myself up to get bluffed off the best hand on a later street.

When 100BBs deep, I'll continuation bet my overpair just about every time. But deepstacked, one pair loses so much value when the pot gets big, and I can't afford to be guessing when out of position.

Here's an example:

Full Tilt Poker $5/$10 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 160019

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter


BTN: $1474.05

Hero (UTG): $2023.25


Pre Flop: ($15.00) Hero is UTG with QQ of hearts QQ of spades

Hero raises to $30, 5 folds, BTN calls $30, 2 folds



Flop: ($75.00) 55 of hearts 88 of clubs 22 of diamonds (2 players)

Hero checks, BTN bets $60, Hero calls $60



Turn: ($195.00) 88 of spades (2 players)

Hero checks, BTN bets $155, Hero calls $155



River: ($505.00) 66 of hearts (2 players)

Hero checks, BTN requests TIME, BTN checks



Final Pot: $505.00

BTN shows 99 of clubs 44 of clubs (a pair of Eights)

Hero shows QQ of hearts QQ of spades (two pair, Queens and Eights)

Hero wins $502.00

(Rake: $3.00)

3 comments:

Shrike said...

Simply a great line to take in these circumstances (of course you'll want to vary your play too). You control the pot and extract a lot of value from many worse hands by taking this passive line postflop, and it has significant metagame value as well.

-PL

Anonymous said...

Change up his river play, slight hesitation, and a bet... what amount are you folding to?

Gnome said...

There's a high probability that I would call up to a pot-sized bet.
If he overbet shoves, I'd really have to think about it...my reflex would be to call even against an overbet because all he can represent with that bet is the nuts or near nuts, and wouldn't he try to bet something closer to the pot size to get paid off?
The flop texture certainly helps.