Call or Fold: Would You Fold the Second Nuts?

Alec Torelli: Hey guys, what's. up? It's Alec Torelli, and welcome back to an episode of the hand of the day. Today's hand comes from one of our Alex. Academy graduates, Kevin, who's playing a two five cash game at, the Morongo Casino. This hand kicks off where under the gun, opens to 20. Kevin finds himself on the button with the jack nine, of diamonds. And while this would normally be a fold, here,. we are DeepStack, which is a compelling reason to call, especially because he profiles the under the gun as a tight,. solid, tight player. And having a hand like jack nine is great,. because you can bust the tight range of your opponent who has. hopefully something like aces or kings, I rather have a little, bit stronger overhand or handed plays a little bit better, maybe something like a 10 Nine suited, or a Jack 10 suited, which always makes the nut straight. But Jaqueline students Okay, so while this hand would typically be a fold from a game theory perspective, from the book perspective, if, like Kevin is the good player that he is, feels like he can outplay his opponent has solid reads on the table. And it has a lot of, implied odds, because meaning he could win a lot of money if he, hits his hand because he's playing DeepStack in position, I'm okay with turning this hand, which is normally a fold into a, call, Kevin calls, and we go heads up to the flop, the flop comes down King, Queen, eight, with a complete rainbow board., And the under the gun now checks. Now here is where I want you guys to think ahead about what the best play is. If you're. going to just do a one and done strategy, I'm not really in love with this type of bet. Bet strategy because a lot of the hands that your opponent can raise with under the gun and. then check the flop are going to call one bet, maybe he has a king, he's slow playing. Maybe he has a queen, which he wants to just get the showdown with like ace queen or queen jack. Or maybe he hasn't had like Jack's 10s or nines which are. vulnerable, but he's probably not going to fold facing one bet. he might even have and as weak as a sack race 10 which are also going to check call one street at least. So if we're going to. bet this flop here, we have to have a subsequent street plan to, continue betting the turn in the river. That's a fine strategy.. If we're going to adopt it. I'm okay with that. Otherwise, I'm okay with doing what Kevin does and just checking behind on this. flop to avoid getting trapped by our opponent and just trying to. get pick up some equity on the turn. Or if our opponent checks again on the turn, we could go ahead and bet Kevin checks the, flop, I'm okay with it. And the turn comes down to five of, diamonds our opponent now checks again. So checking ones could be a deceptive play and could mean that he's trapping or it could, mean he has a hand and showdown value which he's going to call a. bet with. But checking twice is almost always a clear telltale sign that our opponent doesn't have a monster. So I would. eliminate a lot of hands from his range here. Hands such as a king are very likely to check twice hands that are slow. playing like King, Queen, Kings queens, ace king or ACEs,, definitely not gonna check twice. So I would narrow his. range of hands that I put my opponent on down to something, like the best case scenario, something like Ace Queen, and. more likely Jack's 10s nines or something like Ace Jackie's 10,. maybe even a bluff, like he's gonna give up with like Ace four, suited and he's just giving up. So at this point, we picked up,

equity, we have a chance to win if we're called we can win if a, 10 Maybe, or a diamond comes on the river. And we have a lot of. fold equity because against the types of hands our opponent has,, they might not call a bet, Kevin opps to bet 15. And here's where, I critique this bet a little bit here. I like the macro framework. to bet, but I would much rather see a bigger size. So go 2530 35, Because remember, what you want to think about when you're. betting is you want to ask yourself what you're trying to accomplish. We want these weaker types of hands like pocket nines, or ace jack to fold. And if we bet 15 into 40. Our opponent you, always want to think about the situation from your opponent's. point of view. Our opponent is now getting three to one, he needs 25% equity, he's going to call with these hands because we both check the flop he's gonna get to the river and then he you. know he's at the river he might call again. So it's better to bet bigger force him into a tough spot and build this pot, because then he sees wow, if I call 30 on the turn, I have to, call 100 on the river, he might just give it up on the turn. So. I'd like to see us apply more pressure here, bet bigger and, hope that our opponent folds which is what we want to. accomplish. As played, we bet our opponent calls and things get interesting when the 10 comes on the river. Our opponent out bets $50 And I'd like you guys to pause this video for a second and leave me a comment down below with what you think our opponent happens. What hands check the flop, check, hold the turn and and lead the river. Leave out. the range of hands, meaning all the hands that our opponent can. have in this spot. Go ahead, leave me a thought and comment. below. When you're done come back. All right, Kevin now has a, clear raise, right? At this point, he has second nuts, his opponent leads, his opponent could easily have pocket 10s,. which makes a lot of sense. King 10 makes some sense, Queen 10, which makes a lot of sense as well. Or maybe he has some weird. slow played hand like Ace King, and he's just getting silly or something like that. But either way, the second nuts doesn't. really matter, we have a clear raise Kevin ops to make it 100., And here's where I challenge the bet sizing. Once again, I would. go a little bigger here, the types of hands our opponent can have for value or two pairs and sets. And so we want to bet bigger, because he's going to call 100 with those hands, of course, but he's also going to call 150. So we're leaving the, difference on the table, he's not going to fold the 150, just like he's not going to fold to 100, we might as well make it. bigger and get max value from our hand. Kevin makes it 100. And out instantly, our opponent jams all in. So this is a spot. where you got to really stop and think about what types of hands. your opponent could have, of course, we have the second nuts. But just like the way you know, the way to win at poker is to see the game from your opponent's point of view. So I want you to step into your opponent's point of view step into his shoes. And imagine that you are the player on the river that bets 50 and then goes all in? What types of hands would, you have? Would you really jam the river with a set of 10s?, When you could be running into Jack? minories? Jack, you'd. probably want you might make it 300. But you're not going to, instantly jam, whichever bluff? Probably not, maybe, but you. probably think about it, and you probably wouldn't instantly jam. So when our opponent bets and. then three bets the river and instantly jams here. What does. that mean? What is the Insta raise mean? Go ahead and leave,

your thoughts in a comment below. I know you guys have. played a lot of Live Poker, especially these limits. What is. the Insta raise mean to you? What kind of tell it could that. potentially represent. So in my experience here, when someone. makes this play, anytime someone bets the river and then three, bets and alive small stakes poker game, it does it. instantly. It's a very strong sign, I would say that our best case scenario is that he has jack nine. But honestly, I think. this is always just a jack. Now I would probably fold here. But I would actually like to fold here even more had I made it 150 Because then I could avoid the leveling game of saying well, he's just jamming because I'm in raise. So maybe he's trying to, get me off to pair he's trying to get me off a set or maybe my min raise was interpreted as weak. And now he's jamming to. get me off it. So instead of playing all these leveling. games, I challenge you to just what I recommend my clients do is just take a step back and imagine that you're observing the table. You're not in the hand, you're watching the game from afar, or you're reviewing the hand, just like I'm doing. here. In this video. The best way to make decisions in real. time is to do it objectively, the way to make decisions. objectively is to remove yourself from the situation. And, the way to do that is pretend that you're watching the game. So if I'm pretending I'm watching this game, and I'm. sitting there overlooking this tight player who raises them with the gun and bet three bet champs the river, and I'm. telling Kevin what to do, I would tell him to fool. So. that's what I then go ahead and do in real time. And that's my framework that I use with the mental game to make decisions. that I hope can help you as well. So in this spot, I would probably off the fold here. Now if you liked this strategy, and. you want us to review your hands and you want feedback on your game, you want to plug into a community you'd like my oversight to help you reach that next level on your poker journey, we have a brand new cohort coming out of Alex Academy. This is our premier program at conscious poker., We've put hundreds of people through this program, where we, help people turn poker into a profitable business with a goal of making a couple grand a month on the side, we have modules to. help you build a business plan from the ground up and work, through the mental game helps you develop a blueprint for strategy worksheets. I get on calls with you and I do group. coaching with you and other members. and much much more you, can apply to join at the link below or visit Alex ALTCS dot. Academy and Learn more today. So thank you for your attention., And I would love to help you on your poker journey. So, definitely check that out. Now back to the Hanged. Kevin opts, to fold this river which I actually really like so we won't know the results we don't know the results the hand but definitely leave your thoughts in the comment below. And let me, know how you would have played it as well. Hope you enjoy this, video. Be sure to like this video and subscribe to our. channel that really helps us know that we're putting out, content you like get this video shown by more people so we can continue to produce awesome content like to handle the day for you at conscious poker. I'm Alec Torelli, thanks for your attention. I'll see you in the next one..