The Weekly PokerNews Strategy Quiz: Playing Hand-for-Hand

01-16-2016 75480 responses Top results

It’s Saturday again and time for another round of “The Weekly PokerNews Strategy Quiz” featuring questions derived from recent articles appearing in the Strategy section here at PokerNews.

We’re fresh from covering the 2016 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, and the live reporting team is already down in Melbourne at the 2016 Aussie Millions to help bring you updates and results from another couple of weeks’ worth of exciting tournament action.

As each of those tournaments approach the bursting of the cash bubble, they are played “hand-for-hand” meaning each table left in the event completes a single hand before dealing the next one. The pace of play necessarily slows down when that happens, then usually speeds up afterwards once the money is finally reached.

Speaking of slowing things down, closely examining hand histories can be a great way to discuss all sorts of strategy-related issues, and in fact this week’s set of articles include several examples to prove that very point. Over the last week we’ve featured a number of detailed discussions of specific no-limit hold’em tournament hands, and this week’s set of questions all come from those hand analyses.

Get 7 (or more) out of 10 questions correct and you pass the quiz, and if you happen to miss one you’ll get an explanation of the correct choice.

Ready? As the tournament director might say to dealers during hand-for-hand play when it’s time to deal another hand, “you may proceed....”

Want to stay atop all the latest in the poker world? If so, make sure to get PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+!

Start Quiz

Question 1

In “Hand Analysis: Fedor Holz Seizes the Initiative Against Steve O’Dwyer,” Nikolai Yakovenko examines a hand from the Triton Super High Roller Series $200,000 Cali Cup in Manila. They are four-handed, and Holz opens with a raise which Nikolai suggests means his range of possible hands at that point is...

Question 2

In the hand Nikolai examines O’Dwyer’s decision to fold the river after Holz bet 720,000 to make the total pot 2,225,000. That means that to call O’Dwyer had been given pot odds of...

Question 3

In “The Importance of Playing from Position with Calvin ‘cal42688’ Anderson,” he relates a PCA Main Event hand in which he raised from early position, watched the player in the small blind call, then lead with a bet following the flop. Without even knowing the cards, that leading bet by the small blind can be described as a...

Question 4

Carlos Welch shared a hand this week which involved him making a big river call with Ac-As after his opponent shoved all in with the board showing 9h-4h-3s-8h-Th. What makes the call a “hero call” (as he describes it)?

Question 5

In “Matthew Waxman Discusses Picking Off Toby Lewis’ River Bluff-Shove,” Waxman similarly finds himself having to make a tough call after his opponent goes all in on the river in a PCA Main Event hand with 33 players left. With the board 6d-6h-3h-5s-8d, Waxman holds 9d-9c and has to decide if he should call the shove with his...

Question 6

It turns out in that hand Lewis had Th-7h, so Waxman’s 9d-9c was best. Going back to the turn when the board was 6d-6h-3h-5s, how many outs did Lewis have to improve to a better hand than Waxman’s?

Question 7

In “A Simple Bluff: Analyzing an Early-Level Tournament Hand,” Nate Meyvis has A-K and after raising preflop leads with a continuation bet following a T-T-5 rainbow flop. He bets small, noting that “on this dry board” he often doesn’t need to bet big to get a fold. What makes the board “dry”?

Question 8

As the hand continues, Nate’s opponent calls his flop bet, then the turn brings another ten, making the board T-T-5-T. Nate check-raises at this point, since he believed he could “represent a lot of strong hands” here. By “represent” he means...

Question 9

In “Why So Much? An Exercise in Capping an Opponent’s Range,” Gareth Chantler talks us through a hand in which he was able to use an opponent’s actions from street to street to “cap” the player’s range. In other words, Gareth was able to...

Question 10

In the hand Gareth discusses, his opponent raises from the button, Gareth three-bets from the small blind with As-3s, and his opponent calls. Because he only calls Gareth’s reraise and doesn’t reraise back, Gareth’s opponent probably doesn’t have...