Playing a Straight on a Three-Flush, Paired Board
This week I have another tournament hand analysis for you, a hand in which I flop a straight although both the board and my opponent's actions turn the situation into a difficult one.
The blinds were 1,200/2,400 with a 300 ante, and I had the biggest stack at the table with more than 210,000. A loose-aggressive player opened the action with a raise to 5,000 from middle position and the button called. Dealt 5?4? in the small blind I called as well, as did the big blind.
The four of us saw the flop come A?3?2?, giving me a straight. I discuss in the video the merits of leading with a bet here, but I decided to check and in fact it checked all of the way around.
The turn brought the 2?, pairing the board, and this time I did lead with a bet of 14,000 into the pot of almost 23,000. Only the LAG player (the original raiser) called, bringing the pot up over 50,000.
The river was the Q?. What would you do here? Check? Bet? I checked, and my opponent made a big bet of 50,000, almost exactly the size of the pot.
Now what would you do? Take a look at how I decided to play it (and hear my explanation), and see how things turned out:
Would you have played this hand differently? Let me know in a comment below.
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $6,300,000 in live tournament earnings. He writes a weekly educational blog and hosts a podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanLittle.
