While I have a pretty solid grasp of the fundamentally healthy way of playing poker, I often find myself calling too many times with good hands, but second best, when my opponents are willing to put all their money in the pot. I’ve worked hard to close this leak, and this hand shows my progress.

At a recent partypoker $ 5,000 live event in Montreal, I started with 280,000, which is a ton of chips at the 1,000-2,000 level. I increased A Diamond Suit Q Diamond Suit from 1st position to 4,500. A passive and tight player who has 120,000 chips is called from a center position. An incredibly tight and aggressive player with 200,000 chips is also called from the small blind.

The flop comes Q Spade Suit 9 Diamond Suit 6 Spade Suit, gives me the top pair, the top kicker. The little blind was examined. I definitely want to bet to get the value of a lot of the worse hands, like KQ, QJ, and A-9, while also protecting my hand from various draws visit poker88, such as 5 Spades Suit 4 Spades Suit and KJ. Of course, I don’t expect anyone to fold the premium raffle into a reasonable bet. The idea of ​​betting big to try to force the premium draw folded will almost never work out. I bet 12,000 into the 17,500 pot. This bet easily allows for a worse made hand that I want to call while giving bad pot odds.

The middle position player thought for a moment then called out. The little blind then began to think, and think and think, a total of about three minutes. While he was thinking, I realized that the small blind would probably only raise with a set, Q-9, 9-6, or a premium tie. Against the set and two pairs, I was crushed. Against the premium lottery, I will win about 60 percent of the time. Contrary to that range, AQ is in terrible shape, winning only 25 percent of the time.