We are playing 25/50 with a $100/$200 blind structure at the lodge, about $50,000 deep—around 250 big blinds.
Action folds around to Tesla in the cutoff; he has and and makes it 900. Xuan, who has an amazing YouTube channel—make sure you check it out—three-bets on the button to 2,500 with . In loose, splashy Texas games, you can get away with making it a little bigger with your entire three-betting range, which probably wants to be a bit less polarized than normal and more value-heavy than normal. But 2,500 is certainly fine.
Back around to Tesla; he's not folding . Let's head to the flop, where he’s crushing his opponent with only 12% equity on a Queen-high flop, which could be trouble for Tesla.
The Flop
The flop comes down . Xuan has the while Tesla has , so they both have a pair and a backdoor flush draw.
Tesla checks; the pot is 5,400. Xuan goes for a nice $2,500 bet. Again in Texas, I might just bet a little larger; this is a spot where especially when you're playing against someone who's loosey-goosey like Tesla, you want to use bigger bet sizes in general. If Tesla has a Queen or a Ten or any sort of draw, he’s just not going to fold.
If the pot's 5,400, I might bet more like 4,000 in this scenario—especially given that there are two Broadway cards on the flop and that Six does give Tesla a few more potential straights in his range. That said, 2,500 is fine.
Tesla then has to figure out what he wants to do with his top pair on Sundays. He wastes no time for the check-raise to 6,000.
Tesla makes an interesting play by check-raising small; I think this play is fine but again you probably want to use slightly bigger sizes in Texas.
Now, I don't think Xuan is known to be an insane or maniacal type of poker player who’s just going to start re-raising with all sorts of junk to the point where you can get in with . But this is a spot where her range is going to have a lot of equity that you don’t mind denying.
The problem with going to 6,000 is that you don’t really deny any equity because she’s going to call in position while getting pretty good pot odds. So if Tesla wants to raise, he probably should go a little bigger—something like 8,000 in this scenario—with a hand that's almost always good but very vulnerable to being outdrawn.
When you're playing very deep-stacked as they are in this scenario, you have to be cautious about getting all your money in. If we were playing something like maybe 100 big blinds deep, you could just put all your money in immediately on the flop without worrying about it; if they were playing let’s say $20,000 deep instead of $50,000 deep.
But at $50,000 deep if you raise in this scenario and get called, you're going to be against better-made hands and really high-equity draws. For that reason, Xuan just needs to call in position and see what develops.
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The Turn
The turn is the ; now two flush draws are available. Tesla wisely slows down because when Xuan bets the flop and then calls the raise, she’s going to have some Tens in her range as well as , , and —all of which absolutely crush him.
Xuan has to figure out now whether she should value bet because your opponent is more straightforward—they’re rarely going to check-raise you as a bluff and will check many hands like Queens or draws looking to check-call you. You definitely want to value bet Aces here against many players in small and medium stakes games because they will not put you in difficult spots here.
But I've seen Tesla play a little bit, and he gets in there and battles hard. Against players who battle hard, he could have check-raised a Ten on the flop. He could also check the turn, looking to check-raise again with both value hands and draws. For that reason, I think I'd be a little more cautious with the Aces and probably just check it back here, then call any river bet. However, I will say that might be the easy way out. Whenever you're playing poker, you want to make sure you're not consistently taking the easy way out and avoiding having to risk your whole stack.
That said, this is a spot where I don't think you really want to risk your whole stack unless you believe Tesla is absolutely insane, and that's up to you to figure out if he is. Anyway, Xuan does go for the bet; she bets 6,000.
Tesla surprises me again; he raises to 19,000. Is this a value bet or a bluff? I don't know. This is a spot where it's very easy for Xuan to have a , which she's never going to fold. It’s also very easy for her to have Aces, Kings, and Ace-Queen—hands that I presume she’s not going to fold either. On top of that, whatever draws she has can probably stick around since they’re primarily straight draws and flush draws.
So I'm not really sure I like this turn raise by Tesla; maybe it'll work out for him though.
What do you think about this turn bet? Do you think it was a value raise or a bluff raise?
The River
The river is the Six of Diamonds, completing the backdoor flush. Tesla is not afraid; he rips it in! Let’s see if Xuan can make the call.
It’s less likely that we have flopped a set; right? Maybe a hand like pocket Tens or Sixes would raise-check-raise the flop but it’s pretty hard for him to have hands like that at this current juncture.
"Was this runout good for me or bad for me?" Xuan asked Tesla.
After giving it a lot of thought—Schwan makes the fold and is shown the disastrous news!
Tough spot! I'll talk to you next time.
