
Aggressive players can put you in a tricky spot on any given hand. They are not afraid to pull the trigger and put their chips to work, quickly turning a seemingly small and insignificant hand into one where you’re on the line for hundreds of big blinds.
Brown Balla, a Hustler Casino Live regular, is certainly one of those players, and he demonstrated it once again in a pot he played recently against none other than Mariano.
Stakes are $50/$100 with a $100 big blind ante, and Mariano is in the $200 straddle. The effective stack is just under $34,000.
Preflop Action
The hand starts with everyone folding to the button player, who limps for $200 with 6♥5♣. Brown Balla follows suit and calls from the big blind with J♥7♦.
Mariano is in the straddle and he looks down at a really bad hand in Q♥3♦. He decides to check his option, so they proceed to the flop three handed with just $750 in the middle.
Preflop Play Analysis
There is nothing particularly interesting to discuss as far as preflop action is concerned. The only thing that’s somewhat strange is the button player limping in with small offsuite connectors instead of raising.
While this hand isn’t strong at all, with the absolute position and just three players to get through, it seems like a fine raising spot to try and pick up the pot or see the flop in position if one or two players make the call.
Limping on the button is certainly a non-standard line, but if this player also does it with some of his strongest hands on occasion, there can be some merit to it.

Flop Play
The flop comes Q♦10♠9♣. Brown Balla is first to act and he leads out for $200. Mariano raises to $800, and the button player gets out of the way.
Brown Balla now goes for a 3-bet, making it $3,200, and Mariano spends very little time before calling, bringing the pot to $7,150.
Flop Play Analysis
Limped multi-way pots are always hard to play, primarily because hand ranges are so wide and undefined. Brown Balla flops an open-ender on a rainbow board and leads out for a small bet, which is probably fine. It is a wet board, and if his opponents whiffed, he’d pick up the pot with little resistance.
Mariano has a top pair with a weak kicker, and in a heads-up situation, this is a pure call spot. However, with another player still to act, raising makes some sense. This forces the player on the button to only continue with strong hands and gives Mariano position for the rest of the hand if the button folds.
After the button folds, Brown Balla is in an interesting spot. He is out of position, and if he calls and hits his card, there will be a four-liner on the board. These two factors will make it very hard to extract additional value from Mariano.
So, he goes for a more creative option and puts in a rare flop 3-bet. His hand range is very wide here, so it’s hard for Mariano to know what he’s up against, which makes this a pretty good move. Any single-pair type of hand will be in a very tough spot here.
Mariano knows that he could be drawing thin, but he also knows that his opponent could have many hands he’s ahead of, such as a pair and a straight draw combo, straight and backdoor flush combos, and maybe even some air with backdoor potential. So, with a top pair, he has to call at least once, especially in position.
Turn Action
The turn brings the A♦, and Brown Balla keeps the aggression up, betting $5,500, which is over two-thirds of the pot.
Mariano makes a quick call and this pot, which started very small, balloons to $18,150 with one more card to come.
Turn Play Analysis
After going for a flop 3-bet and his opponent just calling, Brown Balla has to keep firing. He has no showdown value, he still has outs to the nuts, and his opponent is unlikely to be very strong.
From Mariano’s perspective, the ace on the turn isn’t likely to change anything. A player as aggressive as Brown Balla would likely raise with almost all his ace-high hands before the flop, especially with all hands that contain an ace and interact with this flop.
So, in many ways, this is a blank, and if he was good on the flop, he’s likely to still be good with his weak pair of queens.
River Action
On the river, the dealer peels another ace, the A♠. Without missing a beat, Brown Balla moves all in for $24,700.
This is a pretty significant overbet, and it really puts Mariano to the test. He goes into a deep tank, but eventually comes to the correct decision and makes the call to pick up the pot of $68,350.
–
River Play Analysis
This is a very interesting river card, as it pairs the board, counterfeiting many potentially strong hands that Brown Balla could have had on the flop (such as T9, Q9, and QT).
Flopped sets are pretty much out of question as these pocket pairs would pretty much always raise before the flop after the button limps.
A hand like KJ, which would be a flopped straight, would raise quite often as well, so Brown Balla’s river value range is very narrow here. He could have J8 or maybe a small ace with backdoor flush potential that backed into trips.
On the other hand, he can have many hands that have little or no showdown value, so his only way to win the pot is by betting.
Taking all these factors into consideration and knowing his opponent is more than capable of going for it, Mariano makes a really nice hero call to pick up a well-deserved pot!