High Stakes Hand Analysis with Pro Player Melika Razavi P13

High stakes regular, magician, pageant queen, and CoinPoker ambassador Melika Razavi loves hitting the cash game tables. To give our community some insight into her pot-winning strategies, Melika will walk you through two great hands step-by-step.

Hand #1

I limp from the small blind with . Satori raised 3x the big blind and I called. I like to defend around 60% of my hands from the small blind against a big blind raise.

The flop is , putting me in a great position to check-raise with a flush draw and a gutshot straight draw.

I decided to check-raise around 4x his bet. I like doing this with most of my value hands and draws in this situation.”

My opponent c-bets 40 and I decided to check-raise around 4x his bet. I like doing this with most of my value hands and draws in this situation. I bet 140 and Satori called.

The turn is a , the second jack on the board, and is one of the few turn cards where I would not like to follow-up with another bet.

Too often my opponent has a jack after bet-calling the flop, plus my hand still has a lot of equity and is good enough to check-call on the turn. I have 13 outs and can check-call and bluff-catch on the river when I hit.

Satori checks back, and the river is a .

The river gives me a pair of nines. Now I have showdown value and will most likely win if the river goes check-check. I can bluff-catch by check-calling against my opponent’s missed draws so there’s no point betting the river.

I checked, Satori checked behind, and, as expected, I won the pot.

Hand #2

I isolation-raise In0k3ndy99, who limped 25 from under the gun, with  to 4x the big blind. Three players called and we go to the flop.

The flop is  giving us a flush draw.

The reason behind this move is simple: I believe I have the best hand.”

I raise a small donk-bet from Martshrmoo after he bets 25 into 255. The reason behind this move is simple: I believe I have the best hand. The player in position, intangible, calls me and the donk-bettor folds.

We make it to the turn which is a . Now there’s a double flush draw on the board.

I still think I have the best hand, and I assume that the player in position would re-raise me pre-flop with a higher pair. Plus, intangible wouldn’t have too many fours in his calling range.

I bet 725 and intangible calls again. The river is a  and both flush draws have been missed.

I think I made a mistake by betting again since there’s not so much to get value from.”

Here I think I made a mistake by betting again since there’s not so much to get value from. Pocket pairs would probably fold to my bets, and intangible will have a lot of missed draws we could potentially get value from instead.

I bet 1,420 into the 2,395 pot.

In retrospect, I think this is a typical check-calling spot on the river.”

intangible folds to my river-bet, which is great but I might have missed out on bluff-catching against a river-bet. In retrospect, I think this is a typical check-calling spot on the river.

Check out more hand analyses by poker pro Melika Razavi:

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