Smelling Opportunity

PezRez on 1st November

PokerStars Game, $46+$4 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level IV (50/100)
Seat 1: Player 1 (1795 in chips)
Seat 2: Villain (2900 in chips)
Seat 3: Hero (2030 in chips)
Seat 4: Player 4 (705 in chips)
Seat 6: Player 6 (1570 in chips)
Villain: posts small blind 50
Hero: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Qh Qs]
Player 4: raises 200 to 300
Player 6: folds
Player 1: folds
Villain: calls 250
Hero: raises 200 to 500
Player 4: raises 205 to 705 and is all-in
Villain: calls 405
Hero: raises 1325 to 2030 and is all-in
Villain: folds
Uncalled bet (1325) returned to Hero
*** FLOP *** [5c Th 2s]
*** TURN *** [5c Th 2s] [2d]
*** RIVER *** [5c Th 2s 2d] [Jh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Hero: shows [Qh Qs] (two pair, Queens and Deuces)
Player 4: shows [Qd Kd] (a pair of Deuces)
Hero collected 2115 from pot
Player 4 finished the tournament in 5th place

Player 4 is a solid regular, and so I know that when he raises to 3x from a 7bb stack, he will never fold. Obviously with Queens, the plan is to put him in, since I’m way ahead of his range and I know he’ll call. But the Villain, a loose fishy player calls in the small blind, and I smell opportunity.

You might think this hand is a no-brainer. Obviously we’re just going to reraise, right? But not all reraises are equal in this situation. The important thing to notice is that if I make the minimum reraise of 200 then Player 4’s likely all-in will be another 205 on top: that means if the action is still open when it comes back round to me, I will be able to reraise.

If I three-bet any more than the minimum, I am likely to either drive away the fishy Villain or, when he calls, to be powerless to drive him out of the pot and risk him outflopping me (not too unlikely an occurrence with Queens). However, as you can see, when I min three-bet, Player 4’s all-in seems like a reasonable price for my less capable foe. After he has called, I can shove and give the Villain what might look like great odds to call with the worst hand or better still drive him out and end up in a pot with Player 4 as a large favourite with a 2-1 overlay provided by my hapless opponent. Your expectation with 2-1 odds as a 2-1 favourite is pretty huge, so be on the lookout for opportunities like this one.

PezRez