Martins Adeniya EPT London

I think I played the hand well.  He might havemade a mistake in calling out of position there with the nines.  Although, I have to say, losing 400k in a couple of minutes at the feature table still doesn't feel good...

If he's got pocket eights then he's got a full house.  But I think probably he could have 4-bet nines, tens, sevens.  You know I don't beat many hands at this stage.  But I do beat some.  I beat ace-king, and it's a possibility that he might have decided he didn't want to get 1.2 million in pre-flop and call knowing that I'm going to barrel it off on any ace high board.

In the end I decided to just check back the turn and take the low variance line, because I know that if I bet the turn, he's either shoving or folding. It puts him in a really tough spot if I do bet there, but at the same time it's risking too much of my stack.  I've got to bet like 250 thousand, but I could win 800 thousand. 

What did I have?  Pocket 3's.  But he's called out of the small blind, he's called the click-5 out of position.  Well, it's dangerous.

The flop comes Q-Q-8.  He checks, so I bet 157,000.  Now he can't do anything here really except call or fold.  He can only raise if he's got a queen in his hand.  So he calls.  And the turn is a jack, which I think is a pretty bad card for me because he could have jacks.  I've put him on jacks or worse, some sort of pair or maybe ace-king. 

He checks and now is the big decision on the turn, because it's really tough to decide whether to bet here, and if so how muh to bet.  I think if I do bet here then he's going to fold just about anything.    He's going to fold tens, nines...

To be honest, people generally don't call my click-5's from out of position in the small blind unless they've got the stone cold nuts and they just want me to barrel off.  But this player must have been speaking to people around the room and found out what I'm about and decided that I'm just really polarized there.

Um...  jack-seven.  But my hand was irrelevant, really.  (Laughs)  So this hand I open to 21 thousand from the hijack.  I get 3-bet from the cutoff to 58 thousand by an aggressive player, and then another aggressive player named Sam MacDonald cold 4-bets from the small blind up to 128,000.

I decide he's not got it, definitely not got it.  I can tell he's weak because Benny Spindler had dwelled up on the button for ages thinking about 4-betting himself and then changed his mind, but I was also watching Sam and by that time he'd looked at his hand and I just didn't think he was that strong. 

It gets back to me and now I make it 221,000, just throw in another 200k.  It's folded back around to Sam and he looks like he doesn't know where he is.  He looks really confused and then finally he says to the dealer, "Can you put in the bets?"  He sees it's only 84 thousand for him to call, and then he decides to call.

The river went check check as well.  I can't bluff the river because he's going to call me then with everything.  And he shows nines and takes the pot.  But I did put him in such a difficult spot.  And I'm just surprised he called me pre-flop. I may be polarized, but at the same time we're deep, I'm in position, and we're on a TV table. 

Anyway, it was a really interesting hand.  I feel like I win that hand a lot.  A large percentage of the time he has to fold preflop.  On ace and king high boards I feel like I win 100% of the time as well. 

I’ll tell you about a hand I lost.  We’re down to the last four tables in the EPT London and I’ve just recently been moved to the feature table.  I’ve 6-bet folded once at this feature table already, so my image is pretty bad…