Playing Trips Like a Chicken in a $5,000 WSOP Event
Here's another hand from this summer's $5,000 six-handed no-limit hold'em World Series of Poker event, this one coming from a little bit deeper in the tournament. As the title suggests, I end up making a decent hand in this one, but chose a cautious route on the river. What would you have done?
The blinds were 1,000/2,000 with a 300 ante and I'd built up a stack of close to 140,000 to begin the hand.
A tight-aggressive player with about 80,000 to start opened for 4,200 from the hijack seat. It folded to me in the big blind where I was dealt Q♥9♥, a nice suited two-gapper with which I was glad to defend with a call.
The flop came J♠9♣6♠ to give me middle pair, and I check-called a continuation bet of 4,000, making the pot just over 20,000. In the video below I talk about what I don't think there's much reason to check-raise here, although I also explore reasons why some might choose to do so.
The turn was the 2♦, a good card for me, and we both checked. Then the river brought the 9♠, giving me trips while also putting a third spade on the board.
I checked, though I'm not sure I should have. Take a look at the hand and see how things ended up playing out in this one:
Would you have bet this river? And if so, would you then have called a raise? (Looking back, that would have been a fun spot to be in!)
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $6,500,000 in live tournament earnings. He writes a weekly educational blog and hosts a podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanLittle.
