Deciding Whether to Hero Call When an Opponent is Polarized
Sometimes in a no-limit hold'em hand the sequence of decisions and the texture of the board leads a player to narrow an opponent's range to such an extent that a big river bet can only mean two things �� extreme strength or complete air.
Danny Tang found himself in such a spot in a hand versus James Chen not too long ago at a tournament in the Red Dragon series in Macau.
Tang was tangling with a tough opponent in Chen, who last week added to his many tournament cashes with a final table finish in the HK$400,000 Super High Roller at PSC Macau won by Steve O'Dwyer. Chen finished seventh in that event, then made another deep high roller run by taking ninth in the HK$103,000 High Roller won by Sosia Jang.
The Tang-Chen hand began with third player opening from the button, then Chen three-bet from the small blind, a reraise about three times the opening raise. Tang looked down at AxK? in the big blind, and noting the especially deep stacks chose to cold four-bet.
The original raiser folded, and after thinking for a while Chen called. From the blinds, then, the pair saw a flop fall QxJx2x �� a rainbow flop (all different suits) that included one heart.
Chen checked and Tang decided to make a continuation bet �� a decision he second-guesses in the video below. Chen then check-raised 2.5x Tang's bet.
"Nothing with value check-raises me," explains Tang, noting how Chen's play tends to remove hands like AxQx, JxJx, QxQx and AxAx from his range. Tang decided to call.
The turn brought the Q?, pairing the board and further narrowing Chen's value range. Chen bet again, and Tang called once more.
The river was the 3?, putting a third heart on the board, and this time Chen jammed all in. Tang talks through his thought process below as he weighed whether or not to make a hero call with his ace-king high. For Tang, Chen was polarized, either having made a backdoor flush (or perhaps having pocket jacks) or having nothing at all.
Tang eventually came up with the call. Take a look to find out what happened:
Tang managed to have a successful PokerStars Championship Macau series, cashing five times including making two final tables. Catch up on all of the results from the major events from PSC Macau below:
- Steve O'Dwyer Wins the HK$400K Super High Roller at PSC Macau
- Quan Zhou Wins HK$206K Single-Day High Roller in PokerStars Championship Macau
- Ka Kwan Lau Wins the Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller Title in Macau
- Oliver Weis Wins Single-Day High Roller II at PSC Macau
- Sosia Jiang Wins the PokerStars Championship Macau HK$103K High Roller
- Elliot Smith Wins the PokerStars Championship Macau Main Event
