Hand Analysis: Parker Talbot Breaks Down a Final Table River Bluff
I have a video to share with you today — highlights from a recent final table, the $55 buy-in $10,0000 Sunday Deepstack Monsoon on 888poker.
If you watch below you'll hear me say after one of the hands "we'll mark that one to review." It was a pretty cool hand. Of course, I say "cool" but it had kind of an awkward ending for me.
The hand starts around the 8:30 mark and comes when we were three-handed and I was the chip leader. I raised the button with A♥J♦ and saw a really tiny three-bet from the big blind.
This guy was playing kind of weak — not super-terrible, but not great. I decided just to call the small three-bet, although looking back at it now and knowing the result of the hand, I'd have preferred to four-bet push for the 40-plus BB effective stacks, especially considering the ICM pressure shoving would cause since the player not in the hand was much shorter than my opponent.
It would have been a great spot to apply pressure, because even if he were to call I probably would have had equity, and even if I he called and I lose, I still would have had plenty of chips going forward.
But I just called the three-bet, and the flop came 4♥K♦8♥ — reasonable for me (backdoor flush and straight draws), and pretty good for him. He continued for about a third of the pot and I called, then the turn brought the Q♦.
My opponent bet again, this time a little less than half the pot. I wouldn't hate to see a fold here by me, although I decided to float and call the second barrel. I was blocking both flush draws and just about all the combo draws, but it was a pretty bad hand to be calling with. I only had two clean outs to the nuts, and I would be guessing if an ace rolled off on the river.
But I called again, so that's a couple of mistakes in the hand so far — that's all right, stuff happens when you party!
The river was the 9♣, which means I end with ace-high. There was close to 500,000 in the middle, and with almost 400,000 behind my opponent checked.
I think it's a really weird check from him. He's kind of polarized. He shouldn't really have a ton of good hands anymore. He should just have like KxJx, Kx10x, AxKx, AxAx. If he has two pair he should have KxQx, Kx9x-suited, Qx8x-suited... maybe 9♦8♦ if he chose to double-barrel that.
But a lot of these hands just want to shove, anyway. Maybe not the weaker two-pair hands, but most of them. I don't think it's insane to check-call some of them, but I would expect most people to be shoving them, or betting at the very least.
Meanwhile I have no showdown value and block both flush draws. It's not great to be bluffing with missed flush draws, but ultimately that's what I decided to do. I'm honestly not sure about this situation, but after calling the turn I'm definitely repping a strong range (and I do block the nuts), and I don't expect him to have anything better than one pair or maybe a few weak two-pair hands.
Putting all that together with the ICM pressure shoving would cause, I did shove — and he called pretty quickly with K♠4♦.
Obviously seeing this, I know that if he's three-betting with king-four offsuit — and doing so with bad sizing, too — I should be shoving preflop and just printing chips. But as played, I think I need to bluff the river (or perhaps just fold the turn).
Looking at it from his perspective, I feel like if you three-bet with king-four and then double-barrel it, you're going to want to bet the river a lot. I shouldn't have Jx10x that often except maybe J♥10♥ or J♦10♦, and he blocks my good two-pair hands like KxQx and Kx8x. So I'm going to want to call him a lot with one-pair hands, which means he ought to bet the river.
There are some other fun hands, too, from this final table — ones that went better for me (and less awkwardly). Take a look below:
Online poker pro and 888poker Ambassador Parker "tonkaaaap" Talbot of Toronto is currently one of the game’s most popular and entertaining Twitch streamers. He can be found streaming several times a week on his Team NeverLucky channel. In addition to playing online, Talbot has collected numerous live tournament scores over recent years, highlighted by a €160,080 cash and final table in a EPT Barcelona High Roller.
