Facing Small Bets With a Junky Hand
The World Series of Poker is in high gear, so today I thought I'd review a fun hand from a previous $1,500 buy-in WSOP event.
The hand took place during the 200/400/50 level when the stacks were relatively shallow. I started with about 37 big blinds, and action began with a tight player with about 25 BBs to start raising to 1,100 from middle position.
It folded to me in the big blind where I called with 9♥8♣, then the flop came 9♦7♥3♥. I checked and my opponent bet 2,200 (nearly 80 percent pot).
As I talk about in the video below, that bet size is interesting, often suggesting a polarized range of strong hands and draws. That said, in a $1,500 WSOP event that wouldn't always be the case.
I actually think check-shoving here wouldn't have been a bad decision, but calling is fine, too, and that's what I did.
The A♥ then fell on the turn and I checked. My opponent bet again — 2,500 into 7,200, leaving himself 4,200 behind.
Now what should I do with my pair of nines and heart draw versus what should be a tight range? See what I ended up deciding and hear how I analyze the hand after going back through it street-by-street:
What would you have done here — would you have peeled as I did and seen the river?
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $6,900,000 in live tournament earnings. He writes a weekly educational blog and hosts a podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com. Sign up to learn poker from Jonathan for free at PokerCoaching.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanLittle.
