Can you keep pace with Trueteller at NL10K?

Look at this spot from the highest stakes of online poker where things couldn't be tougher as Trueteller tests our bluff catching capabilities.

NL10K at an ante table and four regs battling it out relentlessly is high stakes action at its best! We already know what Sauce123 is capable of since we've had a taste of his skill on NL5K. Now we turn our attention to Katya_18, OtB_RedBaron and trueteller.

trueteller has been crushing games for years now and is widely regarded as an extremely intelligent player with a similar talent level to jungleman12. What makes trueteller special is he's capable of seeing through new poker variants very quickly, leading to him dominating these games almost intantly. Because of this, he isn't only focused on No-Limit Hold'em's highest stakes.

Now for today's hand. Our Hero OtB_RedBaron decides to steal preflop with , in itself not an unusual move. While the hand doesn't look good, it can be played very comfortably, especially in position, since it offers a wealth of draw possibilities.

trueteller is lurking at the Button and counters with a 3-bet, which looks deceptively big since antes aren't displayed properly in this hand history. This hand was played at an ante table and there's an additional big blind in the pot turning the 3-bet into a mere pot-sized bet.

Should you call with out of position against a 3-bet from the Button? Even a high stakes player could just get rid of it. A call is definitely not a must in this spot. At the very least, 79s should be the very bottom of the calling range here.

Diving into the real action

It's tough to hit a decent flop with when calling a 3-bet out of position. Considering this, the flop is not bad at all. Hero can land a middle pair with the 7 but could also yet make a backdoor flush if another diamond hits on the turn.

Donking is pointless here since you won't get better hands to fold. Top and over pairs will always call and you'd be out of options if your donk is countered with a raise. Therefore, Hero must check.

The very small bet size from the Button could represent his entire range. Usually, a flop like that wouldn't actually help Hero at all so he would have to fold out of position, even against such a small bet. However, we got lucky with the so calling is best due to the wide betting range of the Button.

A particularly bad turn

The is a bad turn for Hero since it doesn't hit his range, but is a perfect hit for the Button since he will have bet any overcard combos on the flop. The possible spades draw doesn't help us eitherl and, combined with the Button's large bet size of 2/3 pot, we have an easy decision on whether to call or fold.

The 2/3 pot-sized bet enables Button to go all-in on the river if we then call the turn which, if we weren't convinced before, should be by now.

However, OtB_RedBaron calls, possibly assuming the bluffing range of trueteller is much wider than his value-betting range in this spot. Consequently, Hero could called in this setup since he needs some bluff catchers in his range against possible bluffs from the Button.

Two options on the river

Again, out of position, Hero can only check. As expected on the turn, trueteller answers and goes all-in. Now we have a decision to make between call or fold.

A call could work since we also called the turn with a bluff catcher and the Button could be continuing to play his bluffs on this river. A big advantage of is that it doesn't block the Button's bluffing range in this spot. It's even better suited for a call than a standard bluff catcher like K7 which would block all the KJ and AK bluff combos of the Button.

However, folding still seems a reasonable choice. We're only holding a bluff catcher and would rely on trueteller missing this relatively good board completely, bluffing three times in a row. Since we need to call a little bit more than pot-size, our odds aren't particularly great either. We would need to be ahead in 34% of the cases, which is quite a steep requirement when only being equipped with a bluff catcher.

Over to you!

Last week’s poll results

In response to last week’s hand from laesquinacr, the check/call won everywhere apart in Bulgaria, where it was the last option and most of the users voted for bet/fold.