How to Beat a Genius

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Strategy Snapshot: How to Beat a Boy Genius

By Daniel Skolovy | Strategy Snapshots

This hand comes to us via the nosebleed tables at Full Tilt Poker, with our combatants the feared internet pro Genius28 and the, err, less-feared guaranteed376.

(Hand history and stats from PL.com MarketPulse Biggest Pots section.)

Players: Chris "Genius28" Lee and guaranteed376

Game: Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em, Cash, Full Tilt Poker

Situation: $200/$400 blinds

Stacks: Genius28 $51,798.50; guaranteed376 $94,579.

The hand begins with Genius28 in the small blind on the button. He makes a standard three times the big blind raise to $1,200. guaranteed376, from out of position, makes it $4,400.

Genius28 makes the call. The flop comes down 9 8 8. guaranteed376 makes a bet of $5,600. Genius28 makes it $20,000 straight and guaranteed376 shoves.

Genius28 makes the call of $27,398 more and turns up K Q, which needs to improve against guaranteed376's K K. The turn brings the J and the river bricks out with the A and guaranteed376 scoops the $103,596 pot.

Breakdown

Now that we have the boring details out of the way, let's take the proverbial scalpel to this bad boy and see whats lurking beneath the surface.

The hand starts out with a standard three-times-the-big-blind raise by Genius28 with K Q. In position, this is an excellent hand heads-up so Genius28 is happy to play a pot with it.

guaranteed376 three-bets with K K. The three-bet of $5,600 is more than three times Genius28's raise. It's usually a good idea to raise a little bit more when you are out of position to make up for your disadvantage after the flop.

Genius28 still has a good hands heads-up and he will be in position, so he makes the call.

Chris "Genius28" Lee: Known for taking on all comers at the highest stakes, including Phil ivey and Patrik Antonius, Lee is as smart and as fearless as they come. But the board can even fail to deliver for a genius.

The flop brings good news for both players. The 9 8 8 means no ace for guaranteed376 and it gives Genius28 a massive draw. He has the second nut-flush draw as well as two overcards to the board.

gauranteed376 makes a continuation bet of $5,600, which is about two-thirds of the pot. Genius28 makes an aggressive raise to $20,000. It's a very strong semi-bluff. First of all, he can of course win the pot if he gets a fold. Second, he can win the pot should guaranteed376 call and he hits one of his outs.

Remember, there's no way for Genius28 to know the exact hand guaranteed376 has. He can only put him on a range. If guaranteed376 didn't have KK but instead had a hand like JJ, TT, T-9 or A-9, Genius28 would have six more outs, for a total of 15.

This would make the hand nothing more than a race. It would actually mean Genius28 would be a very slight favorite! Of course guaranteed376 could have also been three-betting A-K, A-Q, A-J or a smaller pocket pair - most of which would fold to Genius28's flop raise.

This means Genius28's hand does extremely well against guaranteed376's range.

Now once guaranteed376 shoves, it's obvious Genius28 is behind. But now it's more of an odds question. With $24,400 already invested and the pot sitting at $76,198, folding is no longer an option. He knows he is most likely beat, but the odds can't justify a fold.

So he makes the call and unfortunately for him the board blanks out and he has to watch a $103,596 pot get shipped to his opponent across the felt.

Unfortunately for Genius28, that seemed to be the running theme of yesterday's session. Several more big pots ended up shipped guaranteed376's way, and by the end it looked somewhere in the neighborhood of a $170k loss. More details in the 2+2 forums here.

To see the full hand history and the top ten list of biggest pots online over the last day, week and month. head over to the PokerListings.com MarketPulse section.