Getting Lots of Money in With Pocket Aces
This week's tournament hand involves me getting dealt a big hand preflop, then having to decide how best to get as much in the middle as I could as long as it seemed prudent to do so.
The blinds were 150/300 with a 25 ante, and after picking up A?A? under the gun I made it 800 to go from my relatively deep starting stack of about 55,000. It folded around to the small blind who three-bet big to 3,200 with what appeared likely to be a somewhat narrow range of strong hands. I had him well covered as he began with about 35,000.
Given how my opponent's reraise was such a sign of strength, I definitely wanted to go ahead and four-bet and did so to 6,800. Looking back, I would have liked to have reraised even more, but that was fine and my opponent called, making the pot just over 14,000.
The flop came 9?2?3? and my opponent checked, and I definitely wanted to continuation bet. I bet 5,500 and he called, then the turn brought the K? and another check from my opponent.
Here I bet 5,500 again, the same size bet but smaller relatively speaking (less than a fourth of the pot). I could have gone all in, but as I explain in the video below if I had shoved my opponent was only going to call off (probably) with ace-king or better. My opponent called once more, making the pot just over 36,000 and leaving himself just over 17,000 behind.
The river was the J?, making the final board 9?2?3?K?J?, and the small blind checked one more time. Now my choice was between going all in or checking behind, so I had to think about what hands my opponent would call with that I had beat.
Take a look below to hear my thought process throughout the hand and see how things played out:
After getting a lot of money in on the flop and turn, I chose the cautious route on the river as the board seemed a bit too coordinated for me to continue value betting. What would you have done on the river here?
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $6,700,000 in live tournament earnings. He writes a weekly educational blog and hosts a podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanLittle.
Photo: "Pocket Aces" (adapted), World Poker Tour, CC BY-ND 2.0.
