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BETTER GET THERE - A JOURNEY

The purpose of this blog is to teach myself (and all the readers) how to become a successful poker player. This means starting from $2000 and working my way up to big games.

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Getting to be a successful poker player is not just about playing poker and thinking about it. It's also taking care of your health (both physical and mental), planning your future and other things that have nothing to do with poker.

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Playing top pair Ace heads-up in a tournament

Posted 9th July 2008 at 09:23 AM by BtrGetThere


Playing top pair Ace

Full Tilt, 60/120 blinds NL Hold'em Tourney, 9 Players

SB: 8,450 (70.4 bb)
BB: 6,590 (54.9 bb)
UTG+1: 3,510 (29.3 bb)
UTG+2: 10,805 (90 bb)
MP1: 3,940 (32.8 bb)
MP2: 11,575 (96.5 bb)
MP3: 6,535 (54.5 bb)
Hero (CO): 4,560 (38 bb)
BTN: 23,480 (195.7 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is CO with A J
4 folds, MP3 calls 120, Hero raises to 480, 3 folds, MP3 calls 360

AJs is easily good enough for value raise and to isolate the loose middle position limper with healthy stack. With no antes I raise the normal 3xbb + 1bb for limper. After loose limper call our raise we can narrow his range a bit. I would say his range is close to: A2(s)-A9(s), KT+, K7s+, QT+, Q9s+, 22-77 and medium suited connectors.

Flop: (1,140) A 3 9 (2 players)
MP3 checks, Hero checks

Most of the time this flop totally misses our opponent. We are most likely way ahead so giving him chance to get a piece of the board and same time giving him impression that we might be scared of the ace is the best way to proceed so Hero checks.

Turn: (1,140) 4 (2 players)
MP3 checks, Hero bets 480, MP3 calls 480

The 4 most likely didn't help our opponent though it puts a flush draw on the board. After opponent checks we need to start getting value for our hand and at the same time giving improper odds for possible flush draw. A bit under half pot bet will do the trick, as it denies the odds and looks weak.

River: (2,100) 8 (2 players)
MP3 checks, Hero bets 1,320, MP3 folds

8 shouldn't have helped opponent so we need to bet for value. It's likely that our opponent doesn't really have that much and is folding to almost any bet on river. If I would have had a read that this opponent always pays really small amounts and folds to bigger ones I might have bet small and if I would have known that he pays easily bigger bets with weak holdings I would have bet bigger. Simple as that.

Now that I think of this I should have bet under half pot to make it look really weak.

You can use the same strategy for king hi flop when you have AK. The reasoning behind this is that your opponent cannot hit bigger pair on turn (without you hitting two pair). For the remaining of top pairs on ragged flops, just bet when checked to.


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