Came () this close to winning my first one last night. But I have a hand that's bothering me because I think I could of gotten more value out of it and possibly played it to cute (yeah, I got sucked out on later and lost the match because I was always get unlucky at final tables. But that's here or there).

$10 dollar MTT online tournament. Started with 78 players.

With the blinds and antes at $600/$1200 a man, I have 78K in chips and our villian has 82K. He has been very aggressive heads up, and I just won a 20K pot when I flopped top pair with Q9o and roped him for a pot sized flop bet with a C/R, to which he folded.

Our aggressive villian raises to 4K. Again in the BB, I look down and find the 8h6h. I call because I put him on Ax, or two big cards, and I feel I can either take the pot away or flop big and bust him.

Flop: 6s6c3s.

Nice flop, I check. He bets out 2500. I call as I instantly put him on a flush draw, maybe something like KsJs, As4s..... and I don't wanna lose him yet.

Turn: Jh

I check, and he bets out 3K. I re-raise him 10K. He re-raises me to 20K. Now this is scary to me as I might be up vs three's full, or A6 (plus folding trips heads up is VERY hard to do), but my initial read was that he has a flush draw and it is very possible he either just hit one of his hole cards or has As3s.

I feel if I jam here for another 51K, he might fold because if he doesn't have a 6; I obviously have to have one if I am laying my tourney life on the line on a 3rd re-raise. Plus, if he decides to gamble by calling an all-in (I don't know him enough if he'd do this), I'd prefer seeing the river first and then acting accordingly as this player had been getting lucky. So I just call.

River: 2h

Not a bad card, although 54 just got there, but I doubt he has that (unless it's 5s4s). I have 51K left, him about 55K.

This is my dilemma.....do I check the three 6's and induce a bluff for someone who might have absolutely nothing like AsQs? Or should I have value bet, or jam, the river versus someone who might have top pair (but seems perceptive enough to lay down)?

I dont think youre going to get any action if you lead the river, so I would check to induce the bluff.

You also lose less when you are behind. The only time you lose out is when he has a hand like AJ or an overpair, but that is more than compensated for the times he has a busted draw or tries to value bet some hands you beat.

Can I ask why you put him on a flush draw here? He raised preflop, why wouldn't he continuation bet this flop? ATo is still a big hand heads up on a 663 flop.



Personally, online, I think I just get it in here. If he *is* on a flush draw, a lot of Internet players will call here and I want to give them the wrong odds to draw to their flush. If they call and hit it, then so be it. If they have air, and this ends the hand, then I'm probably not making money on the river anyway and we've already won 30k+ on this hand which is more than 1/3rd our stack. If he by some chance has a hand like A6o, I'm going broke on a non-spade river (and probably any river) anyway, as there's no way I'm laying down trip 6s on an uncoordinated, non-suited board.



I don't care about 54, and again if he has A6, I'm going broke, but I think if he has air it's a check-check situation, so I'd lead small into this flop. Make it stupid-cheap like 5k or something just to get paid off a little by someone with a J.

He had made a similiar bet earlier on a drawing hand (he also had AK heads up and didn't c-bet the flop in an earlier hand 4 handed vs a villian who had pocket 9's on a 1075Q2 board).

AND it was my first instinct. TJ Cloutier says you should just go with your first instinct and imagine the villian's hand as if you played it, and the first thing I thought of was, "if I had a flush draw here and raised PF, I'd bet that way too".



With the hand the villian ended up having, I think if I re-popped him the 3rd time all-in, IMO, he would of folded the 51K more. This guy had gamble to him but it was usually PF. Plus the blinds were at 600-1200 so he could of folded and still have chips to play solid poker.

If I were him, I'd also feel pretty safe betting the flop with pretty much any PP. I take all your chips when I hit my boat on the river.

This hand reminds me a bit of a hand described in HOH 3 between Phil Ivey and another player whose name is escaping me at the moment..Harrington goes into indepth analysis on every street and concludes that on the river, the only way to get paid was to induce a bluff..Anyone know what hand Im talking about?

I think it was the hand between him and Juja (sp?)Helppi during the Monte Carlo Millions in '04. Helppi had AK and just called a raise from Ivey, flopped 3 Kings, and check-called til the river when he bet out into Ivey, who just had 109 high.

Yep thats the one..It has a lot of the same elements..flopped trips out of position against an aggressive player, etc