There are many potentially odd or strange situations that can occur during the course of a hand. At times, it can simply be really hard to understand the way your opponent is playing, and you just have a weird hunch that the villain is bluffing just because the way he bet or raised didn’t make any sense. A lot of the time, players make “hero” calls precisely because of these strange hunches they get, without fully understanding their opponent’s play. However, if you think a bit more carefully and analyse the line taken by the villain on each street, you should be able to get a more accurate picture, and shed some light on the reasons behind these strange hunches. At the same time, it might give you a better idea of how to construct a hand range for your opponent.

I’ll start off with a hand that I played during an online tournament a while back. I had a few friends next to me watching me play, and everyone found this hand very strange. They all took the view that something did not make sense. However, when I asked them why they thought the hand didn’t make sense, nobody was able to give a clear explanation.

It was in the early stages of the tournament and I was holding over 100 big blinds. The blinds were 50/100 and I was holding A-Q offsuit in the big blind, and everyone had folded up to the button. The button folded, and the small blind, who also had close to 100 big blinds, raised 4 BBs. Normally, this would be a spot for an automatic 3-bet, but since everyone including the button had folded, and also because I had position over the small blind raiser, I decide to flat call for value.

I hit a great flop:
Q ♣ 10 ♦ 3 ♣

I flopped the top pair with the top kicker, and was looking forward to getting good value from this hand. But the small blind just checked and it seemed like he was just going to give up the hand because he completely missed. I bet 600 in to a pot of 800, and surprisingly, villain called.

A tricky card fell on the turn:
7 ♣

The turn card put 3 clubs on the table making a flush possible. I didn’t have any clubs, so all I had was top pair with no re-draw, but still a very strong hand in this situation. I didn’t even think about villain’s hand range since it was SB vs BB, and hand ranges are really wide in these circumstances. Because of his check/call on the flop, I was thinking he had a marginal hand like J-T, 9-T or A-T. However, it really surprised me when he decided to donk bet 800 chips into me. The pot size was around 2000 at this time, and villian had bet a bit less than half the pot in to me when the third club dropped; this could mean he had a flush, but at the same time I felt that he would bet the flop if he had flopped a flush draw, since we were both very deep stacked. And so I just called, having been priced in.

Then a very tricky card fell on the river:
Q ♠

The river card made the board Q♣ T♦ 3♣ 7♣ Q♠. The flush was still there, but the extra queen on the river had paired the board, making a full house also possible. Villain tanked for around 10 seconds, then bet 1000 in to a pot that of around 3500. I thought it was possible for villain to have a flush here, but it was also possible that he had a weak Queen and was blocker betting the turn. Since I had the Queen with the best kicker, I decide to make a small raise to maximize value from all hands that I am beating, basically every hand other than a flush. Then came the really surprising play – villain moved all-in for around 7000 more, putting almost all my chips on the line.

If you go over all the action a bit more carefully, you’d find something very strange about this line – if you analyse correctly, you can give yourself a better picture of his likely holdings. One question you should have in mind is: He bet the turn representing a flush, but the river paired the board making a full house possible, and he shoved over my raise. Why would he make such a play?
This is how I looked at it – first of all, a flush was out of the question. The reason for this is because he checked the flop, and most players would bet this flop with a flush draw if they had raised pre-flop. Check/calling with a flush draw after having raised preflop, and leading the turn after making the flush is basically telling your opponent that you have a flush. Most thinking players would try to be more sneaky when it comes to situations like this. If he had check called with a flush draw, I would expect him to check-raise me on the turn or river trying to get some extra value from the hand. Also, he 3-bet shove on the river, with the board paired, is a move that a player holding a flush would hardly never make. So I did not put villain on a flush.

Second, I did not put him on Q-T, T-T, or 3-3 for the possible full house. The flop was Q-T-3 with clubs, and hardly anyone would slow play a strong hand on that type of flop. With so many flush draws and straight draws on that board, it would seem absurd to check/call the flop and donk bet when the flush card hits on the turn. About 90% of players would bet the flop with those hands instead of check/calling, so those hands were also out of the question.

So with that out of the way, what hands should I be worried about that make sense, and what range of hands do I beat in this situation? The only hand that I was really worried about in this spot was pocket Sevens. He could have easily checked the flop with 7-7, hoping to keep the pot small, and then bet out on the turn after hitting his set. I could also look like I have a flush here, so pocket Sevens, making a full house on the river, CAN shove for value against a strong flush. But then, I started to think about his bet sizing. Villain bet less than half the pot on the turn, and this bet felt a lot like a defensive bet. Normally a hand like A♣ X would bet such an amount, hoping to see a cheap river. Also, from the way I played my hand, I look like I either have a flush or just a Queen, so it is possible that he could shove and try to fold those hands out. From his point of view, this bluff would have a high chance of succeeding, since we were both sitting with a lot of chips, nobody wants to risk anything and make hero calls in the early stages of a tournament.

With all these factors considered, I constructed a range of hands for Villain:
7- 7, A♣ Jx, A♣ Kx, or A-Q

Basically, I was beating 2 hands, losing to 1 hand and splitting with 1, so I made the call, and was lucky to see A-J with the ace of clubs.

Even without my analysis, a lot of people would get a strange hunch in this spot, but would still fold, simply because they wouldn’t want to play for stacks so early in the tournament. If you analyse each street very carefully and think one more time before you make your play, you should be able to find out why you are getting this strange “gut feeling”, and know why you are folding if you are going to fold. You can’t just call or fold because you “feel” like it is the right play, you should be able to analyse the hand and know exactly why you are making certain plays, and should put Villain on a range of hands according to your analysis.

Anyone can chip up going all-in preflop with Aces against Kings, but by being able to analyse hands more astutely, paying attention to the line which your opponent is taking on every street, you will be able to gain a much bigger edge in your game. You don’t get so many chances to chip up in these tournaments, so you need to be able to maximise when you do have the chance.