Poker Hand of the Week Setup
An overpair vs. combo draw is a classic setup for very large pots. Find out here how you can maximize your value and minimize your losses in this typical spot.
Poker After Dark “The Fantastic Five” Epsiode 3 featured Matt Berkey, James Romero, Jake Daniels and Lynne Ji. We already know the latter two from High Stakes Poker Season 8.
They are playing 4-max $50/$100 No-Limit Hold’em with a $100 Ante and a $10,000 buy-in.
James Romero and Jake Daniels are both poker pros and have some history, so they know each other’s game quite well. Jake has James clearly covered at the start of the hand.
Poker Hand of the Week Action
Preflop:
Dream spot for James Romero, who picks up Pocket Rockets A♥A♣ on the button with two aggressive players in the blinds.
He makes a min-raise to $400 and Jake Daniels calls from the small blind with 6♣4♣. Everybody else folds. Pot Size: $1,200
Flop:
The 5♠3♣8♠ flop is pretty decent for both as Jake flops an open ended-straight draw, while Romero’s Aces are still good here in the majority of cases.
Daniels checks and James makes a small cbet of 1/3 pot, which has two purposes: Induce a check-raise or bluff by your opponent and keep customers with inferior holdings.
It works as Jake does indeed check-raise making it $1,100 to go just for James to click it back to $2,300. This is certainly not what Jake wanted to see, but given the fact that it’s only $1,100 more he can’t fold here. Pot Size: $5,800
Turn:
The K♣ on the turn is a very interesting card as Jake now also has a flush draw going along with his Open-Ender giving him a staggering 16 outs and 32% equity.
Daniels checks again and this time James Romero chooses the largest of all sizing by announcing All-in for $5,775, which is almost exactly pot size.
Jake Daniels snap-calls getting pot odds of 2.2 to 1 and just like that there are $17,350 in the pot and James Romero is a 68% favourite.
River:
However, Jake Daniels got a lot of outs, but the K♦ is not one of them and James Romero, manages to get maximum value and more than doubles up by raking in a huge $17,350 pot.
Poker Hand of the Week Analysis
This hand is a great example how to play and maximize value with Pocket Aces against a loose or aggressive opponent by using small cbet and raise sizes.
By making a min-raise preflop James Romero makes it very attractive to defend the blinds. It works and Jake Daniels comes along.
I especially like the small cbet sizing on the flop not only induces bluffs or check-raise from overly aggressive opponents, but also keeps them in with inferior holdings. It is important to note that more often than not a small sizing wins you more money in such spots than a large one.
It works to perfection as Jake Daniels falls for it and check-raises. Instead of just calling, Romero now clicks it back, which is another beautiful play, as it gives Daniels pot odds of 5.5 to 1, which means he can’t fold here. In addition to that, James now only has a pot size bet left and he has set up a shove on the turn.
On the turn he goes for all of it and gets snap-called being a big 68% favourite, when the money goes into the middle.
No help for Jake Daniels on the river and James Romero more than doubles up in this hand.
Poker Hand of the Week Conclusion
James Romero played the Aces to perfection and his opponent like a fiddle. He demonstrates how to use small bet and raise sizes to induce as well as to set up a shove on the turn and gets rewarded by 2.5 xing his stack.
Well played James Romero!
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