I’ve been swamped with a lot of stuff to do lately, but I’ve been taking breaks here and there and have been watching the Big Game on PokerStars. I really like the structure of the game as well as the way they use stats and all that jazz (since I am an “internet guy” after all). I also enjoy the commentating which is a lot more sophisticated than what you would see in other televised poker shows. Anyways, there was an interesting hand that was played there between Negraneu and a guy by the name of Bryn Kenney, whom I never heard of before but seems to be crushing it as of late. I thought this spot was interesting so if you haven’t watched this hand, try to be in Kenney’s shoes and see what you would do.
6-max. Blinds $200/400 with $100 ante. Kenney and Daniel are both about $200k deep. The action starts with a sleeper straddle of $2k by rick salomon from UTG+1. Folds around to Negraneu from the button who opens to $4k (essentially a min-raise). Kenney finds AQo from the BB and contemplates a 3bet but just calls. Salomon calls.
Flop comes out 545r. Checks around to Negreanu who bets $6k. Kenney calls and Salomon folds.
Turn is the 8 completing the rainbow. Kenney checks. Negraneu bets $16k. Kenney calls.
The river is an innocuous 2 and pot is now around $56k. Kenney checks and Daniel bets $85k.
Kenney call/fold?
After you’ve decided, continue reading. Here’s how I would break the hand down.
Comment on Negraneu’s flop betting range: I’ve seen him play a lot in these cash games, and he’s def. not the type to cbet every flop, so i imagine him to check back strong aces (AK), other hands that have some chance of catching up (ex. JT) or even 4x I feel like he doesn’t bet all the time. He would certainly bet any overpair, any 5x, straight draws for value. He would also bet his air, I imagine, that he would deem has no likelyhood of improvement, (although on this kind of board, it is kind of hard to come up with a hand that couldn’t catch up on the turn since even hands like 89/8T still have some equity) It would have to be a really raggedy hand I suppose.
For that reason I think the flop call is very standard. We have the best hand (esp. against a minraise from the button) a very high percentage of the time. Even if the opponent wasn’t Negraneu this would be very very standard.
When Negraneu bets the turn his range is more defined and def. more polarized. He has all strong hands betting this turn, including straights, boats, and trips. He will continue to bet this strong with overpairs as well. He will probably check back 8x (gutshot that picked up a pair now), and also checks back a lot of his air I presume. Since there is just such little hands that Negraneu has to bluff with here (he is not a wild player by any means), and given Negraneu’s tendencies to play those small connectors, I think Kenney’s call here is questionable at best. But he decides to call anyways.
Then on the river, Kenney and checks Daniel decides to overbet the pot. Now here is a spot where I believe Daniel Negraneu is super super super polarized. Basically, I have never ever seen Negraneu overbet for value. Even if he was capable of firing an overbet for value, it’s such a spot where it makes no sense for him to do so given the board texture. Kenney can easily have a nutted range here (88, 55) that would probably play it the same, so if Negraneu decided to make this play for value it would mean that he himself would have to have top boat or quads. This means he would never do these with hands that can still put in a good sized river value bet such as sets or straights. This is of course different if they had some kind of dynamic going on, but there was no dynamic to begin with, and also Negraneu is still the type of player imo that will bet closer to $40k with a really strong hand. All this points to Daniel making a bluff, but here’s the problem: as mentioned before, it’s so hard to imagine Daniel just firing all 3 with some speculative hand that he deemed he had no improvement with (let alone imagining that he will fire 3 on a stone cold bluff). Remember this is under the assumption that he will check back hands like JT on the flop, etc. So he needs to have a really really bad hand that somehow did not connect with this flop that decided to fire all 3. But if you really think about it, Negraneu will never make this play with 33 or even 2x so we dont’ ahve to worry about bluffcatching with the worst hand.
Anyways, results of the hand:
Kenney folds without too much thought and Daniel does a little “whew” motion and shows his Q3o.
Pretty sick spot but I believe that a call would’ve been pretty sick there. Not saying that I would’ve made it on the spot for $85k, but would’ve been a pretty sick one.
