I have a cool hand to share with you today!
The stakes are $200/$400 (with a $100 ante). This one took place on the online felt between one of the world’s greatest cash game players (Linus Loeliger) and one of the world’s greatest tournament players (Michael Addamo).
Let’s dive into the action.
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Addamo raises to $880 with Kd 6d from Middle Position. Linus calls with 5s 3s from the Button. BTC200K-FORSURE (an unknown player) calls from the Big Blind with an unknown hand.
The effective stack between the Addamo and Linus is around $35,000 (87.5bb).
Addamo makes the correct raise with King-Six suited. It is a mediocre hand, but with the ante in play, he has extra incentive to raise. It’s worth noting that this is one of the weaker hands with which he should raise (King-Two suited and Queen-Six suited should be folded).
Faced with this raise, Linus makes a very loose call with Five-Three suited. While this call is too loose in theory, he is one of the best players in the world, so I’m sure he made this call for exploitative reasons.
We never find out what BTC200K-FORSURE was holding, so I can’t comment on his play.
Given the ante in play, Addamo should be open-raising with a wider range than in a regular 6-max game. Normally, you’d want to raise with around the top 20% of hands from this position. With an ante, that increases to around the top 25% of hands with the ante.
King-Six suited is towards the bottom of that 25% range. His raise size is good. Anything between 2bb and 3bb should work well as it gives him good pot odds on his raise.
Linus’s call with a low suited gapper is probably a bit spewy, at least in theory. It will be an uphill battle to make this hand profitable. I think it’s fairly likely he sees the relatively unknown player in the Big Blind as a weak player. So, he called with this hand in order to play a pot in position against that weak player. But that’s just speculation on my part.
The theoretically correct strategy for Linus in this spot would be to mix between cold-calling and 3-betting with the top ~15% or so of hands. With this strategy, the strongest possible hands (like Pocket Queens or better, Ace-Queen suited, and Ace-King) would always 3-bet. The other hands should mix calling and 3-betting at varying frequencies.
BTC200K should play quite loosely from the Big Blind because he is getting such great pot odds. He only needs to win the pot 14% of the time to break even on a call (he must call $480 to play for a pot of $3,440).
The flop comes Jh 5d 2d. The pot is $3,440.
BTC200K checks. Addamo checks with Kd 6d. Linus bets $800 with 5s 3s. BTC200K folds. Addamo raises to $3,600. Linus 3-bets to $6,898. Addamo calls.
Since we don’t know what BTC200K had, we can’t analyze his check and fold.
Addamo checks with his second nut flush draw, which is a good play. Betting wouldn’t be a bad play, but his check is theoretically sound. It’s important to check with some flush draws, especially when out of position, to make your checking range more diverse. This makes you tougher to play against.
Faced with this check, Linus makes the correct decision to bet small. His hand needs some protection and would benefit from getting folds, even if he currently has the best hand.
Addamo makes a great decision to check-raise with his flush draw. It will put Linus into a very difficult spot with his weak, one-pair hands.
Linus’ decision to re-raise is very unconventional. It probably isn’t correct in theory, but I assume that he had a good reason to play this way.
BTC200K has the weakest range by far, so checking is the best option for him with his entire range.
Despite the fact that he has a flush draw, Addamo should also probably check his entire range here. The rest of the players combined will have more nutted hands than he does.
Linus is incentivized now to bet for a very small size here with a lot of medium-strength hands and semi-bluffs. The idea here is that by risking a little bit of money, he accomplishes a few things:
Addamo should be check-raising here, so his decision is correct. This range should consist of overpairs, strong top pairs, overcards with backdoor draws, and flush draws. This strategy is optimal because he doesn’t want to let Linus realize his equity for so cheap.
Linus makes a rather unconventional play here and 3-bets. We don’t usually see 3-bets as part of an optimal strategy for the in-position player, especially on boards such as this one and at a high stack depth (almost 100bb deep).
But if we want to look at why Linus might have decided that this is the best strategy, we need to understand when such a play would be optimal. This line with 53-suited would be best if Addamo:
There may be one more reason why Linus might prefer 3-betting with this hand: Equity realization. If he thinks that he will be able to navigate the future inflection points more accurately, then it can make sense to choose this line.
As far as blocker selection goes, having the 5 is a good choice as it blocks the set of 5’s that Addamo is representing while it unblocks his bluffs. Also, Linus still has outs to make good two pairs and trips in case Addamo has a strong but vulnerable hand.
Addamo’s call is good here. He is getting great pot odds, only needing to win the pot around 19% of the time once he calls. An easy feat with a high flush draw.
The turn comes the Ad, making the board Jh 5d 2d Ad. The pot is $17,236.
Addamo checks. Linus checks.
An action turn gives Addamo the nut flush while severely downgrading Linus’ pair of fives.
Despite having the nut flush, Addamo’s decision to check is correct. He is trapping and letting Linus bluff or bet worse hands for value.
Linus makes the best possible play by checking back. His hand is weak and it will be hard for him to get many hands to fold.
A great card for Addamo and a horrible card for Linus.
Addamo’s range now improves to contain the top set. Plus, his bluffs have improved to a flush.
Linus won’t have many flushes at this point since 3-betting with anything other than the nut flush draw on the flop doesn’t make much sense. And since the Ad came on the turn, there is no way he had the Ace-high flush draw on the flop.
Both players played this street correctly in my opinion.
The river comes the Qc, making the final board Jh 5d 2d Ad Qc. The pot is $17,236.
Addamo checks. Linus shoves all-in for an effective bet of $27,007. Addamo calls and scoops the $71,252 pot.
Addamo makes a good decision to check with the nuts, although betting would have been fine as well. His decision to check works perfectly as Linus takes the bait.
Faced with this check, Linus makes the correct bluff. It will be hard for him to have any worse hands that arrive at the river, so there is no chance he can win by checking.
Obviously, Addamo makes the correct call with the nuts. Not much to say there.
The Qc is a total brick. The effective nuts do not change.
Addamo realizes that Linus has a capped range from which it’s going to be very hard to extract value. This happens because Addamo’s range has improved so much on the turn.
In theory, we would probably expect Addamo to mix between checking and betting with this hand. In practice, if he thinks that Linus might be the type of player to overly attack a capped range, or simply has a weak range, then trapping would be the superior action.
Linus’ 3-bet on the flop was quite suspicious to begin with, especially against a shorter than 100bb stack. In this case, it makes even more sense for Adammo to give Linus some rope to put some more money into the pot with a high probability of him holding a weak hand.
When Linus faces a check on the river, he is never winning if he checks back. On top of that, he is very likely at the bottom of his range in a spot where it is very hard for him to have bluffs. This makes it a prime situation for turning his hand into a bluff, so his play is good (but he probably never should have been in this spot to begin with).
In these battles of elite players, there will be a lot of back-and-forth exploitation going on. Sometimes one player gets the upper hand, sometimes the other one.
That’s all for this article! I hope you enjoyed it and that you learned from it!
What do you think of Linus’ 3-bet on the flop? What do you think of Addamo’s trap on the river? I am curious to hear your opinion!
Till’ next time, good luck, grinders!
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