Continuation Bet or Check Behind with Overpair on a Coordinated Board?
Today I want to share and discuss a dicey hand from somewhat deep in a $10,000 buy-in World Series of Poker no-limit hold'em event that I might have played somewhat poorly. See what you think.
The blinds were 600/1,200 with a 200 ante, and with a stack of about 40,000 I opened from middle position to 2,800 with 10?10?. Everyone folded except a tight-aggressive young player in the big blind who had about 60,000 to begin the hand, and the flop came 8?7?6?.
My opponent checked, and I had to decide how to play my overpair on this coordinated board that was certainly good for my opponent's range and bad for my own.
This is a spot where I need to be very cautious, only betting my best made hands. As I discuss below, pocket tens is among those best made hands, but that doesn't necessarily mean I should be making that continuation bet.
In this case, I chose to bet 3,500. That's on the small side (about half the pot), and looking back I think I should be betting more if I'm betting at all. The big blind called, the turn brought the Q?, and my opponent checked again.
There was almost 15,000 in the middle at this point and I had a little less than 34,000 behind. What should I do with my tens, which is now a marginal made hand?
See what I decided and how things played out, and listen to my explanation for why I did what I did.
Even though this hand worked out for me, in hindsight I think checking behind on the flop and turn would have been better. What do you think?
By the way, here's the link to that video I mention: "When and How Much to Continuation Bet."
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $6,800,000 in live tournament earnings. He writes a weekly educational blog and hosts a podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com. Sign up to learn poker from Jonathan for free at PokerCoaching.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanLittle.
