Poker Hand of the Week Setup
The latest Poker After Dark episode brought an extremely gutsy bluff by Alan Keating in a large $62,100 pot. As it is a very interesting spot we take a close look in our Poker Hand of the Week.
This hand was played at the latest episode of Poker After Dark Season 12 The Bratty Bunch Episode 1, which features a lineup consisting of rich businessmen such as Chamath Palihapitiya, David Sacks, Jason Calacanis, Bill Gurley, Alan Keating and the Poker Brat himself Phil Hellmuth.
The game in question is NL $300/$600 6-max with straddle and a minimum buy-in of $40,000.
Alan Keating and David Sacks clashed in several pots before this hand with Keating almost always having the better end for himself. The effective stack size at the beginning of the hand is 231 big blinds and Alan has David clearly covered.
Poker Hand of the Week Action
Preflop Action:
Chamath Palihapitiya opens to $2,200 with Q♣10♣ and David Sacks picks up A♣K♥ in the small blind. He makes it $8,600 to go. Alan Keating picks up 6♦2♥ and one would think this is a clear fold, but he decides to call! This clearly indicates that he is planning to make a play at the pot.
Chamath folds and we go heads-up to the flop. Pot Size: $20,600
Flop:
The flop of 7♥9♥10♦ clearly favours the preflop caller. Keating checks and Sacks quickly checks behind, You can almost feel that he doesn’t like this flop. Pot Size: $20,600
Turn:
The 5♥ on the turn is an interesting card as both players pick up a flush draw and Alan also has a gutshot to go along with it. Keating now leads out and bets nearly half pot with $10,000 into $20,600. David calls. Pot Size: $40,600
River:
The 3♣ on the river is a blank and since Keating has only six-high he has to bet, if he wants to win the hand. This is what he does by putting Sacks all-in.
David Sacks sighs and after tanking for around 30 seconds, he throws his hand into the muck, just to get shown the bluff by Alan Keating as insult to injury, who collects a sizeable $65,100 pot.
Poker Hand of the Week Analysis
This hand is the perfect example, why playing the player and his tendencies can sometimes be more important than playing the cards. Alan Keating quickly and correctly identified David Sacks as being a weak-tight player, who is heavily overfolding.
Keating constantly abuses Sacks and was relentlessly picking on him. Within the first episode alone he ran four big bluffs against Sacks and got all of them through!
This clearly shows why it is so important and extremely profitable to play a lot of hands in position against weak-tight players or opponents, who have a tendency to overfold.
In Keating’s position, his own hand doesn’t really matter as he was only playing the player and his position. Preflop Alan already had the plan to float the flop and take the hand away from Sacks on a later street once he shows weakness.
A perfectly executed float and bluff with six-high by Alan Keating, which owns him a well-deserved $65k pot.
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