Strategy Snapshot: Love For the Open-Shove

Published by: Daniel Skolovy

Posted In: The Poker Reporter Blog, Strategy Snapshots

In our latest snapshot, we break down a particularly interesting deep-stacked hand between Full Tilt pro Brian Hastings and high-stakes regular yossarian_2_.

(Hand history and stats from PL.com MarketPulse Biggest Pots section.)

Players: Brian "$tinger88" Hastings and yossarian_2_

Game: $50/$100 Heads-up No-Limit Hold'em, Cash, Full Tilt Poker

Stack Sizes: Brian Hastings $25,000; yossarian_2_ $19,348

The Setup

Hastings raises to $300 from the small blind/button and yossarian_2_ three-bets to $1,000. Hastings then four-bets to $2,700 and yossarian_2_ makes the call.

The flop comes J 5 7. yossarian_2_ open-shoves for $16,648 and Hastings calls. The turn comes the 6 and the river the A. yossarian_2_ tables his T 8 for the turned flush and Hastings shows his K K for the rivered bigger flush.

Final pot: $38,695.

The Breakdown

This hand is especially interesting because both players are deep-stacked - that is, having 200 BBs or more. With both players at or around $20,000, this hand qualifies!

It starts out with Hastings raising the button 3x the BB to $300 with K K. yossarian_2_, knowing your average button raise means exactly nothing, attempts a re-steal by re-raising to $1,000 with his T 8.

Hastings decides to four-bet rather than smooth-call with his kings and makes it $2,700 to go.

yossarian_2_ makes the call. This call is not nearly as bad as some may think. He calls because he has a suited two-gap with deep stacks; if he hits his hand he can win a large pot. He also knows Hastings' four-bet range does include big aces to which he's only a small dog.

The flop of J 5 7 hits both of their hands. Hastings still holds an overpair to the board and yossarian_2_ picks up a monster draw. yossarian_2_'s T 8 has made a gut-shot straight flush draw. With 12 outs he is just a slight dog against even an overpair!

Against an overpair with no heart he is 48% to win it. Of course he can't know exactly what Hastings holds, but he can put him on a range.

I would put Hastings' range at AA-TT, AK-AJ and the occasional four-bet bluff. Using a program called Poker Stove, we can calculate yossarian_2_'s odds versus Hastings' hand range.

Here's what Poker Stove calculated against Hastings' four-bet range over 76,230 trials:

Board: J 5 7

Equity	Win	Tie	Hand/Range
yossarian_2_	51.377%	51.32%	{ Ts8s }
Brian Hastings	48.623%	48.57%	{ TT+, 9d9h, 8c8d, AJs+, AhTh, KsQs, QsJs, AJo+, AcTd, AcTh, AcTs, AdTh, AdTs, AhTs, KcQd, KcQs }

As you can see, against Hastings' entire pre-flop four-bet range, yossarian_2_'s hand is actually a small favorite. And if we look at it against Hastings' flop calling range it's still only a slight dog!

Again using Poker Stove versus Hastings' flop calling range over 35,640 trials:

Board: J 5 7

Equity	Win	Hand/Range
yossarian_2_	45.217%	{ Ts-8s }
Brian Hastings	54.783%	{ TT+, AJs, Ajo }

This goes to show you how robust a hand a gut-shot straight flush draw is. It's a hand you want to take to the felt almost any time. It deserves to be played fast and aggressive.

Rather than going for a move like a check-raise or something like that, yossarian_2_ decides to just hammer all-in from out of position. It's a large overbet, at almost 3x the size of the pot, but a good bet regardless.

I think yossarian_2_ would have been happy to take the pot on the flop with a fold but he doesn't mind getting all the money in as a slight dog with the overlay from the pre-flop action. The overbet does look fishy and could even coax Hastings into making a call with as little as ace-high.

If that had happened you could have added another six outs to his hand... which is why I really love this open-shove.

As poker would have it, yossarian_2_ hits his flush on the turn but Hastings and his love for Motörhead prevails when the A saves him on the river.

Hastings rakes in the $38,695, but yossarian_2_ can take solace in the fact his play was correct.

To see more big pots from their session, and more of the top 100 biggest Hold'em pots won online over the last day, week and month, jump to the PokerListings.com MarketPulse section.

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