Strategy with Kristy: Nick DiVella
Nick DiVella, 24, lives in Las Vegas and is a professional live cash-game grinder. Previously an online player, DiVella now plays $5/$10 and $10/$20 and is a coach at StackemCoaching.com. On the latest edition of Strategy with Kristy, DiVella discusses taking shots in live games and two cash-game hands.
Here is a snippet from the interview during which DiVella talks about a hand his friend played at $5/$10:
He was stuck a little bit when this hand came up last week at Aria. He makes it $40 under-the-gun with jack-ten of hearts. He gets four callers, so there's $200 in the pot. The flop comes nine-eight-three rainbow. He leads with $140 and gets one call. The turn is the four of hearts. He leads for $250 with an open-ended straight draw and flush draw. His opponent raises to $800. The player is a little wily but doesn't get out of line too much. We have $1,700 in our stack, and it's another $550 to call. I guess I"ll turn it over to you. What would you do?
Well, I don't think we have fold equity.
I don't think so either. That's what I told my friend. It's not often that someone raises to $800 and folds here. Maybe if he bet $120 and his opponent raised to $300 and we had $1,400 or $1,600 behind. Then I think a shove is OK. I think the right play here is to call.
A few of my students have said that they would fold because they don't like sticking half their stack in with a draw, and that is very bad thinking. You have to realize that the pot odds are there and implied odds. If you hit your draw, you're just going to open shove $1,100 and probably get called by a set or two pair. And if they were on a draw themselves, then that's just how it goes.
So anyway, he ended up calling $550 and the river was an offsuit six. The action went check, check. Since his opponent's range is most likely two pairs and sets, I don't think he should shove river when he bricks. I think it's suicidal. But, his opponent ended up showing king-eight for just a pair of eights. It turns out, we actually did have fold equity on the turn, but I think that it's so rare.
[Laughs] I guess when putting someone on a range, you can add in a couple of "spazzes," too, if the player is capable of a few.
Yeah, I think that this happens less than 10 percent of the time.
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