Covering live poker tournaments for a living affords me the chance to look countless thousands of hands played out, a lot of which give interesting and potentially valuable insights into how players — both amateurs and professionals — play the sport. On this ongoing series, I'll highlight hands I've seen on the tournaments I've covered and spot if we will be able to glean anything useful from them.
The Scene
For this week's hand, we go from probably the most premier tournaments with some of the biggest buy-ins in poker to an $1,100 regional tournament, the RunGood Poker Series Horseshoe Council Bluffs Main Event.
The first-ever $1,100 Main Event in tour history was right down to 16 players, right at the stone money bubble, when this hand went down. Andre Allen (pictured above, left) and Kipp Smith (right) had both been playing pretty snug, solid poker, and the tournament normally was pretty tight at the bubble because the next player eliminated would fail to see a $2,800 payday.
The Action
It was Level 16 (2,000/4,000/500) and after a button open by Allen and a choice from the large blind by Smith, the flop came 
. Smith checked, Allen bet 11,000 from the button, then Smith check-raised to 27,000. Allen called, then he called another bet of 35,000 from Smith after the 
turn. The river was a 
, and both players checked.
Allen showed 
, but Smith had it beat with 
, and the 2 players roughly swapped places at the leaderboard, with Smith moving to about 270,000 and Allen right down to 145,000.
Concept and Analysis
Smith makes an ordinary defend with fours against Allen's button open and flops exactly what he's in search of with bottom set of fours on a somewhat coordinated board of . Allen wasn't really a player who was typically out of line, so Smith decides to play the set fast and check-raise it, following up with a turn value-bet.
That's an effective plan overall, because in the event you figure your opponent usually has overpairs or unpaired big cards, you are not going to get any value from the latter hands anyway unless they get "lucky" and hit a couple or choose to run a large bluff. The latter scenario is slightly farfetched at the money bubble of a tournament against a player at the tighter side, so you must just cope with the days the opponent has hands so that you can pay us off on this spot.
The river brings a four-straight to the board, a last community of , meaning any hand with a six in it makes a straight. Many players default to test in that spot and Smith does indeed check, with Allen checking behind and losing the showdown.
But truthfully, this can be a spot where you have to attempt to get one last street of value out of a collection against most opponents. Could Allen have a six? Yes, but it isn't that likely. The one hands with a six that actually make sense for an excellent player to turn up with here could be 
, maybe 
, and pocket sixes.
Furthermore, have a look at a few of Smith's other possible holdings. From Allen's perspective, it's possible Smith has diamonds, and betting the river for value here balances a three-barrel semi-bluffing range of missed flush draws. It is usually possible he has a six, so although Allen has a six himself, is he even going to shove? Many players would just call, figuring they're only getting called by chops and nut straights like 
.
Finally, the stack sizes are right for it. There's still about 140,000 effective between the 2 players, so Smith can make a pleasant value bet of around 50,000 and now have an affordable stack left to maintain by folding if Allen shoves.
Smith made a robust hand here, and although he got some nice value out of it on two streets, I FEEL it is a spot where a 3rd bet for value was called for. It's natural to be leery of four-straight boards as they are often tricky to move on, but you do not make hands as strong as sets too often, and it is very important to get max value while you do.
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