Strategy Snapshot: trex313 Ravages Ivey

Another confrontation from Phil Ivey's personal Deathmatch $500/$1,000 NL table - but this time, Ivey falls to his carnivorous opponent.

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

Players: Phil Ivey and trex313

Game: $500/$1,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em, Cash, Full Tilt Poker

Stacks: Ivey $69,498.50; trex313 $148,997

The Setup

trex313 raises to $3,000 out of the small blind/ button. Phil, from the BB, reraises to $9,000. trex313 smooth-calls and the flop comes 5 6 7.

Ivey bets $13,000 and trex313 shoves all-in. Phil tanks and calls for his last $47,498.50. The turn comes T and the river 3.

Trex turns over A A, and his pair of aces beats Phil's A 8.

The Breakdown

trex, allegedly one of the Dang brothers, decides to sit down at the infamous Ivey Deathmatch. Ivey Deathmatch is Ivey's private table; blinds are $500/$1,000, and only one seat is available. The other is permanently reserved for Phil.

In this hand trex313 makes an obviously standard button raise to $3,000 with his pocket aces. Phil also makes a standard reraise of 3x the original raise with his good suited ace. trex313 however elects to smooth-call with his pocket aces.

This is an excellent move to use on occasion. If you are getting three-bet by an aggressive player heads-up, there's no shame in trapping with a big overpair. trex313 does just that.

Heads-up to the flop of 5 6 7. This flop gives Phil an open-ender. Since he had the initiative from the last round he follows his pre-flop raise up with a flop bet.

He bets $13,000 into the $18,000 pot. The bet is just over two-thirds of the pot, a quality continuation bet. trex313 decides the trap is sprung and shoves all-in.

This is a great move. His pocket aces are severely underrepped and he can count on a wide range of worse hands to call.

Ivey flopped an open-ender. When three-betting with a hand like A 8, flopping a good draw like this is an excellent scenario. However, with trex313's push now, he probably doesn't like his hand as much.

A Frappuccino to ease the pain, Phil?

But there is $91,498 in the pot already. Phil has eight outs to a straight, which will be good at showdown a very high percentage of the time. If trex313 has a one-pair hand smaller than aces, Phil will also have an additional three ace outs.

With $91,498 and $47,498 left in his stack Phil is getting just about 2-1 on his call. To decide whether to call or not Phil will have to put trex313 on a range of hands.

After raising the button and then calling a three-bet, then shoving over Phil's flop bet, his range looks something like AA-44, A-8, A-7, 8- 9s - 4-5s, as well as some random air. Against even a tight range like this Phil is around 30+% to win the pot.

With all of the money in the center of the table Phil decides that the price he is getting is too good to pass up so he calls. Unfortunately for him the board bricks out and the $138,997 pot gets shipped to trex313.

This pot is a prime example of a time when slow-playing pre-flop can be the right strategy. It's definitely not something that you want to get into a habit of, but from time to time it will cause your opponent to catch just enough of the flop to hang him- or herself. In this hand, Phil was just a victim of the pot odds that he helped create; thus, going broke on that flop was a foregone conclusion.

To see the full hand history, plus more high-stakes pots from this and other tables, head to the PokerListings.com MarketPulse section, where you can track all the latest high-stakes action and see the Top 10 list of biggest pots online over the last day, week and month.

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