Poker Hand of the Week Setup
Our Poker Hand of the Week is one of the most gutsy bluffs since a long time! The hand was played in the massive £2,000/£4,000 Triton Poker London Cash Game with a minimum buy-in of £400,000 and several Triton Poker regulars such as Tom Dwan, Eltson Tsang, Paul Phua and Tan Xuan.
The latter has the reputation of being the best Short Deck player in the world and is also a beast in No-Limit Hold’em. In this exceptional hand, he clashes with Chinese high stakes crusher Elton Tsang. They have heaps of history, action is guaranteed so fasten your seatbelts!
Poker Hand of the Week Action
Preflop Action:
Tan Xuan raises in the cutoff to £10,000 with 8♠5♦. Elton Tsang calls on the button with A♥9♠ and so does Yu Liang in the big blind with K♦T♦. Pot size: £32,000
Flop:
The flop comes A♣Q♥4♠ rainbow, which means Tan Xuan wiffs completely, but since he was the initial raiser and this board texture clearly favours the aggressor, he makes a contibet of £12,000.
Elton Tsang, who has somewhat underreped his hand preflop, continues to do so and again just calls as does Yu Liang with his gutshot to the nuts. Pot size: £68,000
Turn:
The turn 6♣ turns Tan Xuan’s complete air into a little bit of equity with a gutshot, but after getting called twice on the flop and turn he has to be worried that one of his opponents has an Ace and so he checks.
Tsang now takes the lead and bets £35,000 into £68,000. Liang quickly folds, but not so Xuan, when the action gets back to him. He thinks for a couple of seconds and then makes a huge check-raise to £130,000.
Elton Tsang looks both confused and disgusted and after almost a minute in the tank, he mucks his hand!
Poker Hand of the Week Analysis
Super interesting hand that demonstrates, how important are metagame and having reads on your opponents in live poker and high stakes cash games.
Let’s go through the hand step by step. The preflop raise might seem very lose to many, but since we are playing 6-max and Xuan is in the cutoff with the two tightest players in the blinds, it actually makes a lot of sense to steal a lot and widen your range.
Elton decides to only call with A♥9♠, which is ok since he is in position, but has the disadvantage that he doesn’t really knows where he stands. Would he have made a small 3-bet, it would have folded out all lose cutoff opens and in case of a call gave him a lot of infirmation about the strength of Tan’s hand. Now he is playing a guessing game…
Elton’s guessing continues on the flop, when Xuan makes a continuation bet on the Ace-high flop, even though he has hit top pair.
On the turn is, where things are getting spicy! Tan Xuan checks and Elton Tsang now understandably thinks that his hand is good. Consequently, he bets half pot.
When the action comes back to Tan Xuan, he has a flash of genius and makes a pretty large check-raise. This move represents extreme strength and he is basically saying he has Two Pair (A-Q) or a set. A-K is also possible, but rather unlikely given how the hand was played.
Poker Hand of the Week Conclusion
The bottom line is all hands Tan Xuan is representing here have Elton Tsang in very bad shape, that’s also the reason, why he folds.
However, would Elton have made a 3-bet pre, Xuan would probably have folded and more importantly would he have checked behind on the turn, then he would have not brought himself in dire straits and probably won the hand.
- View more poker strategy articles here
Watch the Poker Hand of the Week here from 48:41 on:
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