High Stakes Hand Analysis with Pro Player Melika Razavi P3

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 

On a 100/200 No Limit Hold’Em table I open the from BTN to 600 (I like to open 3x from this position). As a result, Sb folds and BB (fedow) defends.

The flop is 2h 8d 5s, making it a dry board with no flush draw and low cards. This means fedow will not have many two-pairs in his range. He most likely has folded all the off suited two pairs (i.e. 2-5, 2-8, and 5-8) preflop.

Most likely we have all the overpairs while fedow does not since he only called preflop.
For these reasons, I like to cbet very widely here. I bet almost my whole range; 1/3. By choosing a smaller sized bet, I am able to make enough cheap bluffs, which I can get away easily, to make the wide cbet range profitable.

Against most players defending tendencies I believe it’s very profitable to cbet all pairs, and at least some Ace high combos such as A3 and A4 for value.

Usually players with trips on boards this face-up will almost always go for a check-raise or check-call.”

So I bet 450 and fedow calls. The turn is 8C and fedow decides to donk-bet half the pot. In this spot, I really don’t believe that he has an 8. Usually, players with trips on boards this face-up (8 high on the flop and an 8 on the turn) will almost always go for a check-raise or check-call.

I decided to call to let him bluff the river as weThere’seres really no point in raising at this moment. The river is 6h and fedow snap-checks.

At this point, I put him on a hand that’s either complete air, a small pair, or 6-7, 6-9, 4-6, 5-6 etc. I bet slightly over half the pot with 1800the on Rive. He calls and I win the pot.

Hand #2

1. I don’t mind getting the money in with a flush draw against a short stack when there is dead money in the pot. This probably only happens when SB has a Q or a draw himself.
2. I can make Oribatej fold some pairs, like a weak Q, 9-9, or J-J, plus I make him fold his bluffs and straight draws.
3. My raise looks strong to both players. I assume these players understand that I cannot be doing this check raise against two players unless I have a flush draw, two pairs, or a set. I gain a lot of respect when I check-raise, and it’s not fun to be out of position without initiative with a 4 high flush draw.

Therefore, I check-raised to 6000 to put SB all-in, and both players called.

He checks behind with Aces, which I think is a huge mistake.”

• High Stakes Hand Analysis with Pro Player Melika Razavi P1

• High Stakes Hand Analysis with Pro Player Melika Razavi P2