Interesting hand

During my session today this hand came up. When he flats the flop I put the majority of his range as draws, air, a 9x hand, and sometimes 22-1010. A jack or overpair should always raise here. Once he called the turn I eliminated everything but draws, underpairs, and air. Some of the combos of Ax are missing due to AK 3-betting, AQ because I have a queen, AJ raises the flop, A9 obv raises turn. Betting the river makes no sense because Ax might even find a hero call here but like I said, is unlikely. The nut ace draw plays fast on the flop a ton anyways.. its doubtful he calls two streets with ace high on this board. Therefore I beat almost every holding he could possibly have making a check/call very easy on the river. Sometimes he'll show up with something crazy like quads or a poorly played FH, but not enough to make my call incorrect. It just goes to show you that if we just stop and think about ranges, we are missing a ton of free money out there. And while this is an extreme example, what about all of those tiny pots we don't stab at or protect our 2nd pair type hands on? It all counts towards the bottom line.

No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (7 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com



UTG ($19.75)

Hero (MP1) ($25.35)

MP2 ($29.73)

CO ($25)

Button ($25)

SB ($25.45)

BB ($26.59)



Preflop: Hero is MP1 with K♠, Q♠

1 fold, Hero bets $0.75, MP2 calls $0.75, 4 folds



Flop: ($1.85) J♦, 4♦, 9♠ (2 players)

Hero bets $1.21, MP2 calls $1.21



Turn: ($4.27) 9♣ (2 players)

Hero bets $2.56, MP2 calls $2.56



River: ($9.39) J♠ (2 players)

Hero checks, MP2 bets $5.25, Hero calls $5.25



Total pot: $19.89



Results:

Hero had K♠, Q♠ (two pair, Jacks and nines).

MP2 had 8♦, 10♦ (two pair, Jacks and nines).

Outcome: Hero won $18.92

On another note, part of my transformation lately as a player ties in with something that I heard on a video series called the eightfold path to poker enlightenment. (you can find it on deucescracked.com) The author of the series talks about his favorite hand. I can't remember what it is exactly, its something like J9o. He makes the statement that he makes more money with that hand then he does with pocket aces.

This sounds ludicrous at face value because we all know that AA is always the biggest moneymaker when we look at HEM or PT. What he is talking about is that all people make a ton of money with AA. In fact, unless it is horribly misplayed.. its very difficult not to make a killing with AA. I could give my 3 year old AA on every hand in her first poker game ever and she would dominate everyone else at the table.

What he is saying is, the way we REALLY make money is by making slightly more than everyone else on those middling non-premium type hands. For example, if the average winrate out there with J9o is -2.33BB/100 but I am -1.33BB/100, I have picked up a ton of money over my poker career that is very difficult to spot.

This is similar to Shania which says playing some weaker hands in unexpected spots will increase the profit of our value end by disguising our overall range. In other words, people who only play the nuts seldom get paid, but a perceived maniac will always get paid because no one ever thinks he "has it."

The difference is that we are not trying to simply play a few more hands to get paid off, we are trying to increase the profit (or lessen the losses) of ALL of our hands.

Check out the top winners on table ratings. Sometimes they are winning money with 100% of hands. How is this possible? Its not by playing our cards at face value, that's for sure.

Of course, accomplishing this is the hard part. Maybe when I figure it out one day I'll write it down. (After I retire of course :) )