Rivering a Straight Flush in a Multi-Way Pot
In this week's hand I played a little loosely and ended up making a strong hand versus two opponents. It was a €2,000 buy-in event I played not too long ago, and the hand came relatively early during the 75/150 level when the stacks were still deep.
It began with a splashy 40-year-old player limping from under the gun, then a younger, loose-aggressive player raised to 600 from the hijack seat. I looked down at 9♥7♥ on the button and called the raise. The limper came along as well, and we were three-handed when the flop came 7♠6♥3♠.
The UTG player checked and the LAG player continued with a bet of 1,200. Having flopped top pair with a couple of backdoor draws, I called. The 40-year-old guy also called, bringing the pot up over 5,600.
The turn was the 8♥ — giving me a straight flush draw — and it checked all of the way around to me. With that much equity I bet 4,000 (somewhat big), and both opponents called. As I talk about in the video below, when both players called I wasn't too excited — I was ready to give up the hand if the river didn't help me.
Well, the river brought the 5♥ — that helped me, all right. It checked around to me again, and I had to decide how much to bet. Take a look at how things played out:
When playing deep-stacked, there is a huge amount of value in seeing cheap flops. You have to risk only a tiny portion of your stack for the chance to win a big pot.
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $6,300,000 in live tournament earnings. He writes a weekly educational blog and hosts a podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanLittle.
