Strategy Snapshot: Dwan durrrrains Kelopuro

Back-to-back snapshots for Sami "LarsLuzak" Kelopuro, with this one coming from the same sickening stakes and involving another unfortunately timed bluff.

Players:

Sami "LarsLuzak" Kelopuro: $311,232

Tom "durrrr" Dwan: $308,984

Game: $500/$1,000, No Limit Hold'em, Full Tilt Poker, RailHeaven

The Setup

Lars raises to $3,000 from the button/small blind and durrrr calls.

The flop comes 9 5 2. durrrr checks and Lars bets $4,000, only to have durrrr check-raise to $12,700. Lars flats the check-raise and they see a turn.

The A comes and durrrr fires $24,700. Lars once again makes the call.

The river comes 7 and durrrr bets out $68,700. Lars ships all-in for $270,832. durrrr snap-calls and tables top two with A 9, which is miles ahead of Lars' 6 4 for six-high for the $617,968 pot.

The Breakdown
Graphical representation of the pot. Only picture $5k chips.

Lars raises it up from the button with an offsuit one-gap 6 4. A standard play at the deep-stacked, high-stakes games.

Since he is going to be in position throughout the hand he has an advantage. Which is why even weak hands are raised for "value" off the button, because the in-position opponent stands to win more pots than their out-of-position opponent.

durrrr elects to flat-call with his good suited ace out of position. Not a standard play by any means but also not a bad one. durrrr flat-calls in a position where he normally three-bets to balance his range and to keep his opponents guessing.

The flop comes 9 5 2. durrrr checks and Lars bets $4,000. This is a continuation bet. Lars took the lead before the flop and now follows it up with a flop bet.

durrrr check-raises with his flopped top pair, top kicker to $12,700. This is a value play - durrrr wants to get value out of any pairs weaker than his own.

Lars elects to call on the flop. He only has to call $8,700 into a $22,700 pot. The pot is laying him 2.5-1 and he has a gutshot, plus the implied odds are huge since both players are extremely deep-stacked.

He makes the call because he feels that if he makes his straight he can win durrrr's entire 300BB stack. He also likely feels that there may be a chance to bluff durrrr out on a later street.

The turn comes the A and durrrr fires $24,700. durrrr improves to top two and fires a solid value bet.

Lars chooses to call this bet as well. This time he is not making an odds-based play but he feels that since durrrr did not reraise before the flop, there is only a small chance that he holds an ace.

Because durrrr is an extremely aggressive player, this is reasonable to believe.

Thus Lars elects to flat-call durrrr's bet in order to float him on the river - i.e. shove all-in over his river bet and get a fold out of any hand that doesn't contain an ace.

By adding the line of shipping over most river bets it now makes an unprofitable call (with the gutshot alone) into a profitable play. Notice he doesn't elect to flat the turn with no equity; he does it with a hand that can still hit and make a monster.

He makes the turn call relying on the fold equity of his river move, but he has some hand equity to fall back on, that is, the gutshot straight draw.

The river comes down 7 and durrrr fires $68,700. Top two pair in a heads-up pot is obviously good a high percentage of the time and makes the decision to bet an easy one.

Now Lars puts his plan into motion and ships all-in for $270,832 for the reasons we discussed on the turn. Since durrrr does not reraise before the flop, Lars believes that he likely does not have an ace and will be forced to fold to his river shove.

This hat is a joke. Bluffing with six-high in a $600k pot isn't.

Unfortunately for Lars, durrrr not only has an ace but the other top pair to go with it, and makes a relatively easy call for the $617,968 pot.

The catalyst in this hand is durrrr flat-calling with his good ace. Had he not done that, he would have won the pot on the flop with his check-raise or on the turn with his bet for sure. But playing his hand in an unpredictable manner gets his thinking opponent to bluff off all his chips.

Though to be honest, I quite like Lars' play since he probably does get folds a high percentage of the time on that river when his opponents do not have an ace. Also, he demonstrates a good point on the turn: floating is a great play, but it seldom should be done with absolutely nothing.

In this example he adds expectation to his gutshot by adding his plan to float the river.

All in all, an interesting hand from two online veterans.

To see more pots from RailHeaven, or more of the Top 100 biggest pots online over the last day, week, month and year, jump to the PokerListings.com MarketPulse Biggest Pots section.

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