[Guruman]

jazz,

I love this kind of a post.

From what I've been reading in PNLE, with stacks this deep hero's going to have a hard time getting a good stack-to-pot ratio with any strong preflop hand. I don't know if there was evidence that a 7x raise was going to get called in this game, but if there was such evidence then an argument could be made for raising that much. If this is the first time someone's raised that big, the I have to put hero on TT-QQ at least initially.

when he raised to $35 and got called in two spots the effective spr was around 15:1, which is generally a bad spot for top pair type hands and a good spot for implied odds and drawing type hands. Hero probably didn't consider this and has really set himself up for tough decisions every time he doesn't catch at least 2 pair right on the flop.

when the tight sb smooth calls such a big preflop raise with such deep stacks I'm inclined to think he's got nearly his entire range of pocket pairs here. His perception may be that CO's hand isn't strong and will be vulnerable to bluffs late in the hand. He may see the deep stacks as a perfect bluffing setup on favorable flops, and if he's been playing tightly to CO's aggression then he may be getting fed up. SB could also have some non-dominated suited connectors in his range, but this is very obviously either an implied odds call or a slowplay. He also probably won't expect bb to come along without a hand.

on the K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]8[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]3[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] sb tipped his hand.

he and bb both checked to CO who made a standard cont bet, and sb just called. If he was planning a float on bb preflop he'd have to change plans and give that up here since he's not headsup and bb may still have a hand. The combination of giving bb decent odds both preflop and on the flop with deep stacks leads me to believe that sb's range just shrunk to AK (heavily discounted), AA(moderately discounted), and KK(most likely).

turn 3[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] is a big ole blank.

with a big hand, getting the turn checked through is bad news, and the entirety of what I think CO has is going to check through if you let it, so SB makes a nice little "please raise me" type probe bet and hopes that CO either peels or tries to raise him off of the hand. the spr was still a healthy 6:1 or so, which means that sb would have to get his $ in chunks.

when CO raises the sb bet its unlikely to be a K since there arent many kings left in the deck, but it could still be either a bluffing whiffed pp or 88 or 3x looking for value.

Sb could still perceive CO's hand as total trash here, but I still have a hard time putting him on total air because of the BB factor early on. I'm having a hard time moving Sb's range away from AK, AA, and KK because each of those hands has issues with putting big reraises in here. AK and AA would turn into bluffs with a big reraise, and KK could scare away the UI PPs in CO's range.

river 6[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] and SB pulls the trigger. despite the fact that this is a 1k bet into a $650 pot, this really doesnt look like a bluff to me. CO makes some too loose calls, the bet is sized to look like a bluff, and SB has to have a hand here. The one complicating factor is that CO's range is still very heavily skewed towards one-pair type hands that should get scared away here.

I don't think hero can call with less than 88, and even that's a pretty risky play.