Hand From the WPT Festa al Lago with Anthony Yeh
Anthony Yeh is a former PokerNews employee turned poker professional. He made it deep into Day 3 of the World Poker Tour Festa al Lago Main Event and talked to PokerNews about an interesting hand he played on Day 1 against Kathy Liebert.
Concepts
- Know your opponent
- Speculative hands can be played early in tournaments with deep stacks
- Put your opponents on a range, and play accordingly
Tell us about your starting table.
Well, I definitely had the toughest table on Day 1. There was Sam Stein, Jeff Madsen, Joe Tehan, Shaun Deeb, Noah Schwartz, Kathy Liebert, "Ozzy87", and Isabelle Mercier. Everyone at my table was a complete notable, so it was a very, very aggressive table.
Preflop Action: Yeh raised from under the gun plus two with to 500 with 7♣5♣. Liebert reraised to 1,700 from the cutoff. Yeh called.
Why call here?
I’m calling her reraise because it’s early so we are really deep. She’s also a pretty tight player, so her reraising range is pretty small, meaning that if I hit the right flop, I might get a pretty good portion of her stack.
Flop Action: The flop came down 9♣8♦6♣. Yeh checked and Leibert checked.
Did you think about leading here? Or do you expect her to continuation-bet most of the time?
No, I didn’t really think about that. She had the aggression preflop, so yeah, I thought should would c-bet most of the time. I saw her play a hand before where she three-bet preflop with queens and checked it all the way down on a king-high board. When she checked back, I still thought she had a pair, I just wasn’t sure how big.
Was your plan on the flop to check-raise?
Yeah, I was. I was going to check-raise because I was pretty certain she had an overpair, and she probably would have at least smooth called.
Turn Action: The turn was the 4♥. The board now reads 9♣8♦6♣4♥. Yeh bet 2,250. Leibert called.
River Action: The river was the K♠. Yeh checked and Leibert bet 6,000. Yeh raised to 15,000. Leibert called and showed pocket kings for top set. Yeh showed 7♣5♣ and won with a straight to the nine.
At this point, I had her on pocket aces because she called my bet on the turn, so on the river, I checked like I was scared of the king. I didn’t have her on a set, so I made it 15,000. I didn’t want to lose value by making it too big for her to call. If I made it 22,000 or so, she might be scared of me having a set.
Does she ever have ace-king here?
No, absolutely not, unless she has ace-king of clubs, but I don’t think she would have checked back the flop, and actually, I don’t think she would have three-bet preflop.
In hindsight, you could have raised more, but at the time, you had to go with your read that she had only a one-pair hand.
Yeah, I played it well, I just didn’t have the optimal result I could have had. It was hard to get her off chips, so I’m glad I played it in a way where I could get half her stack. Because the table was playing so aggressively, I thought she was playing extra tight, and trying to trap more. If the hand was against anyone else at the table, I would have stacked them.
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