How to Play Pocket Aces Postflop With a Tricky River
Today I have an interesting hand to share from a $1,000 buy-in World Series of Poker event. In fact, it's the very first hand of the tournament in which I was dealt pocket aces, and right away found myself in a tricky situation by the time the hand reached the river.
Since it was the first hand everyone was exactly 100 big blinds deep (it was a "turbo" tournament). It folded to me in the cutoff where I raised 3x to 150 with my A♠A♣.
In the video below I talk a little bit about turbo tournaments, short-stacked strategy, push-fold apps and charts, and how playing relatively shallow stacks actually requires a lot more skill than some players realize.
It folded to the big blind — a player who looked about 50 about whom I knew nothing at all — and he called, then he checked after the flop came 8♥7♥4♦.
Some players might check behind in this spot, but I like betting and here I did bet 200 (I'd prefer a bit bigger). My opponent called, and the turn brought the 3♦. The big blind checked again, I bet 500, and my opponent called again.
The river was the Q♦, putting a third diamond on the board, and my opponent surprised me a little by leading out with a bet of 500 into the 1,725 pot.
I'll stop there and let you think about what you'd do here and then let you see what happened and how I analyzed this river situation:
When playing shallow-stacked, you really don't want to be risking chips in marginal situations that often. This bet was small enough that it wasn't hard for me to call, but notice how I didn't make things worse for myself by raising. And how I could have definitely lost more!
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $6,900,000 in live tournament earnings. He writes a weekly educational blog and hosts a podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com. Sign up to learn poker from Jonathan for free at PokerCoaching.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanLittle.
