This is the second hand I’ve chosen to write about from PKR Live III. Not long after the hand where I doubled up against zanzibax (read about it here) I got involved in a hand with Chivalrousgent. Now, ‘Chiv’ and I have plenty of history, having discussed plenty of hands over the year or so we have known each other. In this hand I had around 23k in chips and Chiv had around 13k in chips (up from the starting 10,000), when I picked up pocket Fives. The blinds were 75/150, so I raised to my standard 375 from UTG+1 and he made what I consider to be a small three-bet to 850, giving me good odds to catch my set and stack him if he’s got the big hand he’s telegraphing. As such, I flat-called.
Flop: Kc-8h-5s
discomonkey checks
Chivalrousgent bets – 1,400
Discomonkey all-in – 22,000
Chivalrousgent calls
The flop is a good one! K-8-5 rainbow? Lovely. I checked to Chiv, who led out 1,400 into the 1,800 pot. Given the action I decided I had to read him as strong, and if he held A-K or A-A he would probably call a massive over-shove, as his hand is too difficult to get away from. I moved all-in, Chiv called and flipped pocket Aces and I dodged his two outs to scoop another large pot and move up to 35k in chips.
Why do I think I played this hand well?
Raising with 5-5 in early position preflop is something I do to balance my range. What I mean by this is that I don’t want to give people a good idea of my hand based on where I have played it from, i.e. I’m only raising 9-9+/A-Q+ from early position and then limping small pocket pairs. Raising some other hands like 6-7 suited and 5-5 allows me to stay a little deceptive and keep observant players off balance.
Manipulating my opponents into thinking I have a strong hand when I don’t and letting them believe I can sometimes have a weaker hand in these positions just keeps my opponents guessing. Chiv’s raise priced me in to flop my set, as it was quite small and we were 90BB deep, so my call of his three-bet was fine in my opinion.
On the flop, my logic for making such a large check-raise was that I believed he would struggle a great deal to fold his hand such was the strength of it, and that if I just raised the flop he might have the capacity to get away from the hand on a later street given the information he would receive from my betting pattern. Thus the best way to get all of his money was to get it on the flop when he still believed he had the best hand and had the least information about my hand.
Karl 'discomonkey' Fenton is a member of Team PKR Pro. To find out more about him and to read more articles written by Karl, please click here