There is no lack of exciting hands and big pots coming to us from the Poker at the Lodge live stream. Some of them are just crazy and hard to believe. Others are more main stream, but still worth looking at.
The hand we’ll be analyzing today belongs to the latter category, featuring a clash between Xuan Li and the man they call British Bulldog. Both are stream regulars, so it’s safe to assume they have a bit of history and know a thing or two about each other’s playing styles.
Blinds are $200/$400 with the $800 straddle active. Xuan Li is the effective stack, starting with $80,300 in her stack.
Preflop Action
Everybody folds to British Bulldog on the button who makes it $2,000 to go with 10♠9♦. Everybody gets out of the way but Xuan Li who makes the call in the straddle with 8♠7♦.
They proceed to the flop heads up, with $4,900 in the middle.
Preflop Play Analysis
Not too much to unpack as far as the preflop action goes. Bulldog’s open on the button is super standard, as is the sizing of 2.5x.
With the $800 straddle active, they are playing effectively 100 big blinds deep, which would make Xuan’s hand a pure fold as far as GTO poker is concerned. At 200 big blinds, though, this hand does call about a quarter of the time.
So, her call may be a bit on the looser side, but it’s certainly nothing extreme, especially in a loose live game where very few hands end before the flop.
Flop Action
The flop comes K♦8♦7♥, giving Xuan Li the bottom two pair and an open-ended straight draw to her opponent.
She plays in flow and checks, and British Bulldog does the same, so the pot remains the same going to the turn.
Flop Play Analysis
Xuan is supposed to check her entire rage on this flop, so even though she flopped a big hand, there is no need to get out of line here.
Bulldog has a hand that he can both bet and check bet with. Poker solvers suggest both options, with a slight preference for betting.
One thing to note, though, is that he checks back immediately, which may have nothing to do with poker theory, but it is an important observation. If he flopped a really big hand, he’d probably at least take a few seconds to think about what he wants to do, given a very wet flop texture.
Turn Action
The turn brings the 8♣, so the board now reads K♦8♦7♥8♣, which means Xuan Li has a full house.
After the action checked through on the flop, she takes the initiative and bets $3,000. British Bulldog raises to $11,000. Xuan makes the call, bringing the pot to $26,900.
Turn Play Analysis
Although the turn gives Xuan Li a very strong hand, she can’t afford to check again after her opponent skipped the flop continuation bet. She needs to start putting some money into the pot so her bet is perfectly standard.
British Bulldog is supposed to be calling with his hand pretty much always. Raising accomplishes very little as he has a position, and after he makes the call, even if he misses the river, he still might have the opportunity to bluff at the pot if Xuan is just taking a shot with complete air.
As played, he is pretty much representing an 8 that he decided to check on the flop and that improved on the turn. The line is fairly believable, but his specific hand is simply a bad bluff candidate, given how much equity it has.
With her opponent going for a big raise, Xuan Li’s best course of action is to just call and check on all rivers, giving Bulldog an opportunity to keep bluffing or value betting a worse hand.
River Action
The J♣ rolls on the river, for the full runout of K♦8♦7♥8♣J♣. British Bulldog improves to a straight while Xuan still holds the winner with her full house.
She checks, and her opponent fires out for a big bet of $38,000, which is substantially larger than the size of the pot. Xuan makes a snap call, shows the winner, and drags in the pot of $102,900.
–
River Play Analysis
River is an absolute cooler as British Bulldog catches one of his outs, and the way the hand played out there is no reason to think his straight is not good.
He goes for a huge bet, which is a bit ambitious, but with a lot of draws bricking out and Xuan calling his flop raise, she could have a hand that ends up calling.
Usually, when your opponent makes this massive bet on the river, you don’t want to be raising, as their range is quite polarized. However, in this specific situation, Xuan probably missed some value by just calling.
There are actually a fair few hands that her opponent could be betting for value using this big sizing that are still behind (like A8, Q8, 98, and the rivered straight). Given the fact she doesn’t have that many chips behind, he’d struggle to find a fold with these hands, especially straights.
If we also consider the quick check back on the flop, it’s really hard to believe that British Bulldog has a hand that beats the full house on this river.
So, although she raked in a nice pot, Xuan probably missed some value on this river, but she was probably confused by the huge bet from her opponent and decided to take a safer route, just in case she somehow stumbled upon a huge cooler.
