High Stakes Hand Analysis with Pro Player Melika Razavi P7

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 minimum raise with  to 50 from the button and urcoinsrmine 3bets to 150 from the big blind.

Pocket tens are good enough to 4bet and call off a 100 BB all-in shove. I expect to get my money in against both higher and lower pocket pairs, as well as  and . So I 4bet raise to 425 and my opponent calls.

The flop is a dry  rainbow. I cbet 275 into 850, which is a 1/3 size and my opponent calls.

The turn is another  rainbow. urcoinsarmine checks and I bet 600 into 1,400. I’m leaving 1,200 left in my stack for a value-shove on most river options.

Here is where it gets interesting because urcoinsarmine decides to check-shove and is putting me all-in for the decision to call off my last 1,200 to win a pot of 3,800.

The problem with calling here is that I don’t think he can have any bluffs.”

The problem with calling here is that I don’t think he can have any bluffs. It looks like he has slowplayed a hand like , , , or . He could also have a hand like  or  for trips.

It’s not fun to fold here since I was planning on going all-in on the river and get a call and, in most scenarios, win. But it’s unlikely that my opponent is doing this with a worse hand or a with straight-draw.

I don’t recommend playing a lower pair than tens the way urcoinsarmine is playing this hand.”

I don’t think he would and I don’t recommend playing a lower pair than tens the way urcoinsarmine is playing this hand. It’s called overplaying your hand, and to check-shove on the turn with a pair lower than tens in this 4bet pot would be devastating in the long run.

I’m happy to call with  or + here, but with tens, I have to let them go since I’m not beating anything. urcoinsarmine wins the 2,600 pot.

Hand #2

Short-stacked (40bb deep) PokerAbuser raises from the button to 1,800. I call with  from the small blind, a hand I could have chosen to 3bet instead.

Since my opponent is a bit short and might 4bet shove if I 3bet, I prefer to not make as many bluffs as I would if he were sitting deeper.

ennuye calls from the big blind and the flop cards are  with a flush draw. ennuye and I check and PokerAbuser cbets 2,700 into 7,200.

I decided to check-raise to 8,400 here for the following reasons:

1. I am happy to get it in against the short stack with top  pair kicker here. I can expect PokerAbuser to fold some bluffs, call some weaker hands and shove with both weaker and better hands. I will get it in good against PokerAbuser’s range that contains a lot of high and low draws that are committed to going all-in when sitting with a such a short stack.
2. I can make ennuye fold a draw,,  and maybe . My play looks strong and is one of the weakest value hands in my range that I will raise with on this flop. He will have to fold a few better hands and draws since he is sitting deeper with me.

If PokerAbuser wasn’t sitting short, then I think it would have been a lot better to just call the bet on the flop instead of a check-raise that would face the problem of being deep-stacked against better hands.

ennuye folds, PokerAbuser goes all-in with a pair and nut-flush draw. I snap-called for another 13,800.

It’s close to a flip, but this time the 50,000 pot went my way.

Check out more hand analyses by poker pro Melika Razavi:

• High Stakes Hand Analysis with Pro Player Melika Razavi P1
• High Stakes Hand Analysis with Pro Player Melika Razavi P2
• High Stakes Hand Analysis with Pro Player Melika Razavi P3
• High Stakes Hand Analysis with Pro Player Melika Razavi P4
• High Stakes Hand Analysis with Pro Player Melika Razavi P5
• High Stakes Hand Analysis with Pro Player Melika Razavi P6