Angel Investor vs High Stakes Poker Pro: $294,000 Pot Analysis

It’s always fun to watch the dynamic that takes place in a poker hand between a high-stakes pro and a recreational player.

We’re about to take a deep, analytical look at one of those hands, but there’s a twist. The “recreational player” is Jordi Alexander, an angel investor who happens to be a former poker pro.

In a $100/$200/$200 game (with a $400 straddle), Jordi found himself playing a big pot against high stakes pro Dan Smith.

Without any further ado, let’s dive into the action!

Preflop Action

Handz limps from UTG+2 with . Dan Smith raises to $2,000 with from the Hijack. Taras cold-calls from the Button with . Jordi 3-bets to $11,000 with . Handz folds. Dan calls. Taras folds.

Preflop Analysis

Handz’ limp is a definite no-no. His hand is simply too weak to do anything other than fold.

Dan has an easy raise with King-Queen suited. His large raise size is good. He is looking to isolate himself against a weaker range (Handz) by disincentivizing the other players from calling or 3-betting light. The range with which he should be isolating is very dependent on Handz’s limping strategy. As a general guideline, he should raise somewhere around the top 15-20% of hands.

Taras’ cold-call with King-Queen offsuit is too loose. Dan has a strong raising range and there are 3 players left to act to worry about. If he were in the Big Blind or Straddle (with only 1 or no players behind him) then it would be a fine call. Being on the Button is not enough to turn this call into a profitable one. As Taras, 3-betting would have been a better option.

Jordi has a clear 3-bet for value with Ace-King. His size is also good. It’s big enough to put sufficient pressure on both Dan’s and Taras’ range so that they cannot make +EV (expected value) calls with too many hands.

Handz makes an easy fold facing the raise and 3-bet over his limp. Dan makes the correct call with his . And Taras makes a good fold.

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Flop Action

The flop comes . The pot is $25,100.

Jordi bets $8,500. Dan calls.

Flop Analysis

On this type of flop, Jordi has a large range advantage driven by the presence of Pocket Aces and Pocket Kings in his range. Dan would have 4-bet preflop with those hands (and potentially Pocket Queens), so he can’t have those premium pocket pairs.

Due to this large range advantage, Jordi should start betting large in order to extract value and deny equity. I would advise him to use a bet of around 75% of the pot. This size would put Dan in a tough spot with a lot of his range.

Against a big bet, even overpairs such as Pocket Eights — though high in equity (~40-45%) — approach becoming -EV calls for Dan, especially without a backdoor flush draw. This is because he will often face two more streets of polarized bets, and hands like Pocket Eights/Nines can’t handle that pressure on the vast majority of runouts.

As played, Jordi’s smaller bet is not the end of the world, as his Ace-King will get called by some weaker hands such as , , , and . It’s obviously nice to keep those dominated hands in when you have exactly Ace-King.

Dan’s call, while marginal, is fine, given that he has 2 decent overcards and a backdoor flush draw. He can also use this hand to bluff on a lot of turns when Jordi checks.

Turn Action

The turn comes the , making the board . The pot is $42,100.

Jordi checks. Dan bets $16,000. Jordi calls.

Turn Analysis

The is one of the better turns for Dan as his range now becomes significantly more nutted than Jordi’s. This is due to all of the suited hands that Dan can have that Jordi can’t (Ace-Ten suited, King-Jack suited, King-Ten suited, Queen-Jack suited, Jack-Ten suited, and some suited connectors).

For this reason, and the fact that there is still so much money left behind (stack-to-pot ratio is high), Jordi should slow down significantly and check the vast majority of his range. This prevents Dan from stabbing huge and very thin for value (and with a lot of bluffs) as he would cap his range.

Against the check, given the large amount of money left behind, Dan should go for an overbet when betting here. He should be looking to extract maximum value with his strong hands and deny as much equity as possible with his semi-bluffs. He can use this size because of the large nut advantage that he has.

If he did use an overbet size, his range should contain flushes and full houses for value. He should balance that range out with the Ace-King and Ace-Queen combos that have picked up a flush draw. If this was his strategy, he should check his specific hand of .

That being said, betting around 40% of the pot as he did has merit. Even this small size will force Jordi to fold a good chunk of his range.

Against this small size, Jordi can profitably call with his draw to the second nut flush. His 2 overcards could also be live if Dan has a hand like Pocket Tens.

River Action

The river is the , making the final board . The pot is $74,100.

Jordi checks. Dan fires a $110,000 bet.

River Analysis

The river puts four cards to a flush and isn’t great for Jordi’s range, which is probably made out of mostly overpairs.

River strategy in general is highly subjective since it is very sensitive to each player’s range. Ranges in real life are always different than the solver’s. So, instead of telling you about what each player ought to be doing, I am going to explain to you what has happened as far as I can tell. 

Jordi checks with a hand that is close between a value bet and a bluff-catcher. This is fine, though leading out is not out of the question.

Let’s consider why Dan went for this big overbet. The rationale behind it could be that he perceived Jordi’s range to lack many combos of nut flushes and second nut flushes. Or, maybe Dan thought that Jordi would fold too often with his Queen and Jack-high flushes.

Blocker-wise, isn’t the best option out there. It is blocking a lot of the folding range like , , , and . This removal effect will lower the success frequency of the bluff quite drastically considering the narrow ranges that reach this river.

In theory, Jordi should never fold with the second nut flush as it is too high up in his range. In practice, if you have an opponent who you think isn’t going to bluff enough worse hands with this line, then you should fold, as the second nut flush is a pure bluff-catcher in this case. That said, Dan is clearly a strong and capable player against whom Jordi should never fold the second nut flush.

As a future adjustment for Jordi, it would be wise of him to start trapping more hands in these types of scenarios against Dan. It seems that Dan is keen on putting a lot of pressure with bluffs, presumably because he thinks Jordi has ranges worth attacking.

Results

Jordi calls and scoops a $294,000 pot.

Final Thoughts

A very interesting hand played decently well by both Dan and Jordi. I would say that Dan got a little bit too greedy with his overbet on the river given how bad his blockers were. That being said, it is very easy to lose sight of your range with so little time to act. We are not solvers!

That’s all for this breakdown! I hope you enjoyed it and that you learned something new from it! If you have any other hands you’d like me to review just leave a comment down below and I’ll do my best!

Till’ next time, good luck, grinders!

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