This is my first article of the series and what better way to start of, than with a hand where I am dealt pocket rockets?

I was playing $1/$2 NL short handed at Party Poker. It was a pretty tough table and my opponent in the hand was a tough regular player. Under the Gun I got dealt A§ , Aª , I make it $7 to go and get called by the Small Blind.

The pot is $16, there are just the two of us to the flop and it comes K§ , 6© , Tª . It is a pretty safe board, with no flush draw, he checks over to me so I bet $12. My opponent thinks for a while and raises to $29.6 total.

This is the point in any hand where I try to put my opponent on a hand. Pre-flop it is almost impossible to put a player on a hand, and before he has made a move on the flop, when deciding whether to continuation bet or not, there is usually only your own hand and what the flop brings to go by.

A standard raise in this spot is about $36 – three times my continuation bet. His check-raise was a bit less. Without a good read on what your opponent usually does in this spot and I didn’t have one – he could make a slightly lower check-raise for two reasons: He wants you to call or he isn’t sure he has the best hand. I am aware that such advise isn’t worth much; it is like asking how long to cook the potatoes and getting the answer, not too long and not too short. However, it does narrow his range of hands down quite a bit. If he wants me to call he has a set or two pair, making his hand range KT, 66 or possibly TT. He would have re-raised KK pre-flop and he would probably have re-raise TT too. If he isn’t sure he has the best hand, but feels comfortable enough to check-raise, he probably has something like KQ, KJ, AT or QJ.

Looking through this information, we see that we have narrowed his range down to 7 possible hands. With that information we can decide our best course of action, while staying alert for more clues about his hand range in the future.

If he is check-raising a worse pair or a straight draw, I do not want him to fold, and if he is raising with a set or two pair, I want to see the next card as cheaply as possible. So the most logical course of action is to just call.

That is what I did and the turn came: 5¨ , making the board: K§ , 6© , Tª , 5¨ and the pot about $75. My opponent thought for a while and checked it over to me again. His check made me believe that he has one pair or a straight draw, at least unless he plans to check-raise me all-in. However, two check-raises in a row is a move I seldom encounter so I decide to bet $50. He again thinks for a while before calling.

At this point I doubt he has a draw. Calling of $7 pre-flop, check-raising $30 on the flop and calling $50 on the turn is not the best way to play QJ and an open-ended straight draw on the flop. As I said earlier, this guy was a regular tough player and I really didn’t think he would play a hand like that this way.

The river came 5§ , making the board: K§ , 6© , Tª , 5¨ , 5§ , with me still holding A§ , Aª . The 5 made KT a second best hand, in the case that was his holding. No flush and no straights were possible, so when he checked to me again I pushed $113.4, my entire stack, into the pot of $175.2, hoping for a call from a worse hand. Would you have played the hand the same way? My opponent thought for a while again before calling, what do you think he had? Make your guess before reading the results under the info box.

He called and showed K¨ , Q§ . I doubled up, won $200 and felt good about the way I played the hand.