Last year on Hustler Casino Live, Ethan "Rampage" Yau found himself in a dream spot as he has pocket aces against Boston Jimmy’s pocket kings! Can he find a way to win all of Jimmy’s chips and a $100,000 pot?
In this strategy column, I'll discuss when you should look to use a larger raise size pre-flop when you are out of position to reduce your opponent’s implied odds and to reduce the stack-to-pot ratio, as well as the variables you should consider when deciding on an optimal bet size.
More Strategy From Jonathan Little!
The hand kicked off with Adam22 raising to $300 from under the gun with K♣10♥ before Boston Jimmy three-bet to $1,000 from the next seat with K♥K♦. Action then folded to Rampage in the third blind with A♦A♣ and he four-bet to $4,500. Adam22 folded and Boston Jimmy called.
Adam22's open is a little loose but Boston Jimmy's three-bet with kings is standard. Rampage's four-bet may look big, but you want to raise big from out of position to deny your opponent pot odds. In position, Boston Jimmy should almost always call and almost never re-raise.
The flop landed 10♣8♥5♣ and Rampage continued with a pot-sized bet of $10,000. Boston Jimmy called with his overpair.
Boston Jimmy is in a tough spot because he almost always has the best hand here and there are a lot of turn cards that could hurt him. But, with $35,325 behind, he is too deep to shove for protection, so I like his call.
The turn brought the J♠ and Rampage shoved to put Boston Jimmy all in. Boston Jimmy went in the tank as the commentator noted that Boston Jimmy might be tilted from losing a big hand with aces earlier in the stream.
When the turn brings the jack, Rampage now loses to hands like queen-nine and pocket jacks. That said, I think Rampage has an easy shove in this scenario, given that his hand is likely best but vulnerable.
What would you do with pocket kings in this scenario?
Boston Jimmy eventually found a fold against the lunatic that is Rampage Poker and managed to save himself $35,000. That's a bad result for Rampage because it is important to stack your opponent whenever you gets aces versus kings.
For more on this hand check out my breakdown in the following video:
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $7,000,000 in live tournament earnings. He writes a weekly educational blog and hosts a podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com. Sign up to learn poker from Jonathan for free at PokerCoaching.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanLittle.
