Jonathan Little Hand of the Week: Rampage Goes for an Insane River Bluff

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Rampage Poker is one of the guys whom I believe are incredibly fun to watch, and today, we’re going to look into one of the craziest poker hands he’s ever played.

The hand is from the Hustler Casino Live Stream, blinds are $100/$200, and the effective stack is $24,000.

The action begins with Rampage open raising from the UTG position, making it $600 to go with A♣8♣. Nik, the main villain in the hand, wakes up with pocket kings (K♥K♦ in the cutoff.

Instead of 3-betting, Nik decides to flat call Rampage’s open, which is an okay play against an aggressive opponent if you believe he’ll fold a lot to your 3-bet.

The Flop

The dealer spreads out Q♠6♠2♦, and this is the board on which Rampage should have some checks in his range, as it will connect fairly well with Nik’s calling range.

That said, c-betting here certainly isn’t bad, and Rampage continues for $500.

Nik could go either way here, as it’s somewhat likely his opponent has a kind of hand he will not fold to a raise. However, he opts to continue slow playing his big pocket pair and just smooth calls.

The Turn

The 2♠ peels on the turn, and Rampage decides to check. Nik makes a relatively small bet of $1,000 and Rampage calls.

I think you can only justify calling in this spot if you believe Nik’s range is really loose, which may or may not be the case. From the purely GTO point of view, this hand is probably just a check/fold.

The River

The river brings another deuce, and Rampage checks once again. Now, with twos full of kings, Nik decides to go for an overbet, betting $7,000 into the $4.5K pot.

Once Rampage checks the river, Nik can be pretty sure he has the best hand. In this spot, his opponent will mostly have queens and underpairs.

I don’t mind Nik’s big bet here since, if Rampage does have a queen, he’ll usually just have to pay.

But then Rampage check-raises all-in, putting Nik to the test for his remaining $14,800. This is a really weird spot because Nik should have no pocket twos in his range, and, the way the hand has played out, no pocket kings or pocket aces.

So, it looks like Nik is going for full value with a queen of some sort, and in that case, he loses to all Rampage’s random deuces, pocket aces, kings, and queens.

It’s a really non-standard spot because not many people will go for a massive check-raise bluff on the river.

What would you do in Nik’s shoes? And do you think Rampage manages to pull this one through? To find out how this fun hand ends, make sure to check out the video above!