Heads Up Hand of the Week — February 20th, 2009

The villain bought in short which tells me off the bat that he’s probably not a good player. He calls out of position way too often (56% of the time) and is not raising enough from the button (only 31% of the time). He’s pretty aggressive and likes to lead out on flops when he’s out of position. I caught him making stupid bluffs once or twice in about 100 hands.

Hero (Button) ($107.30)
SB ($91.30)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 2h, 8h
Hero bets $3, SB calls $2

Flop: ($6) 3h, 3s, 4s (2 players)
SB bets $6, Hero calls $6

Turn: ($18) 9c (2 players)
SB bets $18, Hero calls $18

River: ($54) 5d (2 players)
SB bets $15, Hero raises to $80.30 (All-In), 1 fold

I have a horrible hand on the flop, but take a look at this preflop hand chart. 10.4% of my button raising range that has a three. Only 3.8% of my big blind calling range has a 3. In short, I am much more likely to have a 3 on the button than on the big blind. The villain is much looser in the big blind than I am, but his range is still scewed more towards face cards and the percentage of 3’s in his range is probably still around 4%. Sometimes the cards you hold don’t matter — it’s about putting your opponent on a range of possible hands, determining what he’s capable of folding, and acting accordingly.