In the ongoing Strategy Snapshot series, PL.com looks at a key hand from a major live tournament and breaks it down from a strategy standpoint.

Players: Annette Obrestad vs Unknown

Tournament: PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, Day 1

Situation: Level 3, $100/$200 blinds plus $25 ante.

This hand starts out with an unknown player making a standard 3xBB raise from the cut-off. The button folds and Annette Obrestad, with an $18,300 stack, three bets to $1,600 from the SB with J♦ T♦.

The BB folds and the cut-off makes it $5,900. Annette instantly five-bet jams for the rest of her chips. The cut off makes the call with A♥ K♠.

The board comes 9♠ 6♣ 2♣, the turn brings the 6♦ and the river brings the A♣ to eliminate the reigning champ of WSOP Europe.

Obrestad: Not afraid to five-bet light.

Analysis

This hand is super fishy. It looks like Annette got way out of line thinking she could just bully people into laying down anything.

The original raise from the player in the cut-off is standard. Annette takes it for a steal-raise and three-bets with her high suited connectors.

This raise is an attempt to make the cut-off fold. She does not want to play a marginal hand out of position. The cut-off, however, four bets it.

This should let Annette know that he has a very strong hand. Annette must have believed her opponent was aware of her aggressive image, read her three-bet as a steal and was making a light re-raise of his own.

So she decides to go all in. The only reason she could make this move is if she believed that he would lay down to the five-bet push.

Unrequited Caribbean queen, heading for the rail.

You Reap What You Sow

Unfortunately for Annette, the cut-off makes the call with A♥ K♠. It is lucky, however, he only has A-K and not AA, KK or QQ.

I personally have played enough turbo MTTs on Stars to know JTs is practically a favorite over A-K at only a 41% dog. But the board bricks out and she is eliminated.

This is just an example of an aggressive player getting a little too out of line. Annette knows she has an aggressive image and that usually works to her advantage. But some cases she needs to be able to keep her aggressiveness in check too.

This hand happened early in the tournament, when there is no urgency to build a stack with complex moves or to put your whole stack at risk. Everyone makes mistakes though, and at least now she can go enjoy the Caribbean rather than being cooped up in a poker room for days at a time.

Actually, maybe it wasn't such a mistake after all...

Related Articles:

• Strategy Snapshot: The $274,500 Question
  
• Strategy Snapshot: Marginal Hand Out of Position? Not Good
• Strategy Snapshot: What Would Jesus Five-Bet With?
• Strategy Snapshot: Never Bet More Than You Have To
• Strategy Snapshot: Fast Play is the New Slow Play
• Strategy Snapshot: Breaking Down Annette_15