Tens v Mr Smith
January 6, 2008
Against a lot of players, when they flat call preflop on the button for 1/7th of their stack, you can put them on a very narrow range. However, I know Gavin Smith likes to try and outplay people postflop, especially in position, so his preflop range is wider than most here.
I’m surprised at the comments arguing whether we should flat call the minraise and then bet or checkcall the turn, or set him in on the flop. It really makes very little difference. There is no way Gavin Smith is ever putting 9,400 chips into a pot from a 15,700 stack and then folding on the flop (though of course some random donkeys will do). The only decision is do we fold to the minraise, or am I prepared to put another 9,500 chips into this pot? Calling the raise and then check folding the turn or river I think is out of the question - the decision for 9,500 chips must be made now.
The question really is, what does his minraise mean? It shows massive strength, and I can’t really ever see him turning over a hand we want to see here. If on the other hand he had shoved, I don’t think I would have been able to fold, I would have called and expected him to show 77-99 a lot of the time. I just can’t see him having one of these hands given the minraise, however.
So I folded, of course. Or at least, I decided folding was the best play after I’d thought the hand over after the tournament.
What I actually did in reality is call the minraise, making the pot 20,500. The turn was a five, and I check called his last 6,300, though I didn’t feel good about it. He showed me, as some guessed, 66. And I didn’t river a four-outer.
I’m really not convinced he can play this hand profitably against me for 1/7th of his stack preflop, as I’m simply going to cbet most flops I miss and he is going to fold the best hand postflop too often (obviously when I have an unpaired starting hand pre, not in this exact hand).
I later found this article he wrote, which was actually published on the day of the tournament - In Defense of the Call. As he notes in the article, a lot of his equity from the preflop call comes from picking up the pot when his opponent doesn’t like the flop and check folds to him.
Of course, had the flop come QQ5, 842, maybe even 973, I think he would have shoved over my cbet and I would have been in a very strong position. As it was, I never recovered and busted 9th/51, Gavin himself got unlucky and finished about 11th.
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