Top Poker Player Hits Gutshot Straight Draw for $34,000 (Analysis)
Buckle up!
For today’s article, I am breaking down a huge pot played between Linus Loeliger and GoofyMonkey in a $100/$200 online cash game.
A sick turn card that completes a sneaky draw sends this hand off the rails.
Without any further ado, let’s jump right into the action!
🚨GIVEAWAY TO $5 MILLION TOURNAMENT🚨
Want a free seat in a $5 MILLION GUARANTEED tournament? Sign up here to enter the giveaway!
Upswing Poker has partnered with ClubWPT Gold to give away 20 seats to the upcoming $5 Million Freeroll on December 13th in Las Vegas. Every winner gets $1,000 cash to pay for travel too!
Become a ClubWPT Gold member (for free) with code UPSWING now >>
ClubWPT Gold is an upcoming poker site where USA and Canadian residents can play real poker. By signing up with code UPSWING, you get an entry into our giveaway and a chance to win a seat. Unfortunately, residents of MI, ID, MT, WA and Quebec are ineligible. Learn more and read the contest rules here.
Preflop Action
GoofyMonkey opens up the action with a raise of $600 from the Small Blind with Kh 3h. Linus calls from the Big Blind with Ac 3s.
The effective stack is around $17,000 (85bb).
Simple Preflop Analysis
GoofyMonkey mediocre hand (K3-suited) is strong enough to raise frm the Small Blind. He should play well over half of all hands with just one player behind to worry about. His raise sizing of 3bb is good.
Linus makes a good call with A3-offsuit. It is a marginal hand, but he’s getting good pot odds and will get to play in position. It’s worth noting that 3-betting with this hand would be a reasonable move as well.
Flop Action
The flop comes Ks 5h 2c. The pot is $1,200.
GoofyMonkey bets $324. Linus raises to $1,248. GoofyMonkey calls.
Simple Flop Analysis
The flop gives GoofyMonkey top pair and Linus a gutshot straight draw.
GoofyMonkey’s decision to bet small is good. He has a hand that is strong enough to get value from worse. It’s worth noting that both players have a lot of garbage hands in their ranges, here, making hands like one pair relatively strong.
Linus can either call or raise with his A3-offsuit. His hand has good properties for bluffing since it can make better hands fold while also having a chance to improve to a strong hand.
When faced with the raise, K3-suited is a must-call. He is beating all of Linus’ bluffs and marginal hands.
Advanced Flop Analysis
On this board, GoofyMonkey has the range advantage. This is because his range uniquely contains Pocket Aces, Pocket Kings, Ace-King, and underpairs like Pocket Queens through Pocket Nines. He also has fewer super low equity hands and random offsuit trash than his opponent.
Despite this advantage, due to the disconnected nature of this board and the fact that he is out-of-position (OOP), he is incentivized to have a highly mixed c-betting strategy. This means he is looking to mix between betting and checking with all kinds of hands.
The reason for that is to disable Linus from being able to attack his checking range and realize his equity cheaply. A well-protected checking range is capable of check-raising at a high frequency and punishing any deviation from equilibrium.
K3-suited should mix between c-betting and checking. The optimal size is a block bet (25-30% pot). This size punishes the vast amount of weak hands in Linus’ range by forcing them to fold or make crying calls/raises.
Faced with this c-bet, Linus’ A3-offsuit is strong enough to continue, either by calling or raising small. His gutshot straight draw with an overcard to the board makes for a good raising candidate because it folds out some better hands such as higher offsuit Ax hands, as well as a ton of worse hands that have a decent amount of equity (like 98s). A3-offsuit also retains a good amount of equity against the opponent’s bluff-catching range.
Back to GoofyMonkey now, who makes the correct call. He should be defending with all made hands, the few draws available, some strong backdoor flush draw hands, and some of the strong Ace-highs.
Turn Action
The turn comes the 4d, making the board Ks 5h 2c 4d. The pot is $3,696.
GoofyMonkey checks. Linus bets to $3,696. GoofyMonkey calls.
Simple Turn Analysis
An action turn card gives Linus the second-nut straight and GoofyMonkey an open-ended straight draw to go with his top pair.
When checked to, Linus should keep up the aggression with his turned straight. A pot-sized bet is appropriate in this case due to the stack-to-pot ratio (SPR). By betting the full size of the pot, he sets up stacks for an all-in bet on the river.
As daunting as it may seem, GoofyMonkey should always call here. He is still beating all of the hands Linus could be bluffing with, and he has outs to improve to a straight. Usually that straight will be the best hand (even though he’d be chopping in this instance).
Advanced Turn Analysis
The turn 4d is one of the best possible cards for Linus’ range. So much of his raising range improves to either a straight or two pair.
On such a favorable card, Linus should bet big at a high frequency, leveraging his enormous nut advantage. A pot-sized bet is probably best because they are playing for a little less than 100bb.
Despite the situation, GoofyMonkey can’t just give up now with his top pair + open-ended straight draw. Linus can still be bluffing and GoofyMonkey can improve on plenty of cards.
River Action
The river comes the Th, making the final board Ks 5h 2c 4d Th. The pot is $11,088.
GoofyMonkey checks. Linus shoves for $11,492. GoofyMonkey calls. Linus scoops the $34,072 pot.
Simple River Analysis
The river changes nothing as Linus has the second nut straight and GoofyMonkey has top pair.
Linus should always shove with his straight. This is about a pot-sized shove, which shows how well he set up stacks with that big turn bet.
GoofyMonkey has a tough decision with a great bluff-catcher. He needs to decide if Linus will bluff often enough in this situation to make a marginal call like this.
If he is uncertain, he should most likely call. This is one of his best hands to bluff-catch with given he blocks both two pairs and straights. Plus, Linus is an aggressive player who is certainly capable of running big bluffs.
Advanced River Analysis
The river Th is a brick. This card favors GoofyMonkey’s range in the sense that no more of Linus’ semi-bluffs have improved. That being said, Linus still retains the nut advantage, so GoofyMonkey should not have a donk betting range.
In theory, Linus should now be crafting a balanced shoving range. This range should be made out of two pairs and better for value, plus some bluffs for balance. The best bluffs would be ones that have 0 showdown value, block the bluff-catching hands, and unblock the folding range. For example, 4x 3x would be a prime bluffing hand.
Back to GoofyMonkey now who is in a world of hurt when faced with this shove.
From a theoretical perspective, his hand makes for a great bluff-catcher. He is blocking two pairs (Kx 5x and Kx 2x) and straights (Ax 3x and 6x 3x). The only problem is that his hand doesn’t beat any value bets, meaning he has pure bluff-catcher.
In theory, these hands have an expected value (EV) of 0 or slightly higher when calling, and the solver calls with them at a high frequency.
In practice, however, Linus’ betting range typically is going to veer slightly towards one side (too many value hands or too many bluffs). If the opponent is veering slightly too much to the bluffing side, then hands such as K3-suited should call every time to exploit that deviation.
If you do not have any idea about a player’s strategy, then your best bet is to attempt to play as close as possible to the game theory optimal (GTO) strategy. This strategy is guaranteed to not lose you money over the long term.
With that said, many of you reading this probably play in low stakes games with relatively passive opponents. I DO NOT recommend making calls like this against those types of players. But Linus is extremely good and aggressive, so I can’t fault GoofyMonkey for making this call.
Final Thoughts
I think both players made great decisions in this hand. But what do you think? Let me know in the comments.
I want to shout out Linus’ turn bet size again. He bet the perfect amount to set up an all-in bet on the river. That’s one of the harder things to do with precision when playing cash games, especially when stacks are not the usual 100bb.
That’s all for this article! I hope you enjoyed it and that you learned something new from it! As usual, if you have any questions or feedback feel free to leave a comment in the section down below.
If you want more high stakes hand analysis, check out The Craziest Poker Hand Of 2024 (Analysis).
Till’ next time, good luck, grinders!
