Jonathan Little's Weekly Poker Hand: When Is It Time to Fold Your Overpair?
Poker pro and coach Jonathan Little has been producing a wide variety of strategy content for poker players for some time, including authoring multiple books and sharing videos and articles on his website and elsewhere, much of which is free to players of all levels seeking to improve their games.
Little started his popular "Weekly Poker Hand" series on YouTube more than five years ago, using the format to focus on particular concepts and common mistakes as illustrated in his hand analyses.
In the episode shown below, Little reviews another hand played by a student in the Sunday Million on PokerStars, a hand highlighting issues having to do with bet sizing and the need to be disciplined enough to fold an overpair when circumstances recommend doing so.
The stacks are still deep when a player raises 2.5x to 500 from middle position, then Little's student has to act from the hijack with Q?Q? and about 24,000 in his stack.
Hero raises to 1,200, but Little explains why in this spot with such a strong starting hand he would prefer a bigger reraise. It folds back around and the opponent calls, the flop comes 9?8?5?, and the opponent checks.
This is not a great board for Hero. Little explains reasons why checking back is probably recommended here, noting how his student doesn't have any great range advantage on a flop that could have hit his opponent in many ways. Hero bets, however, and only a bit more than a third of the pot, which Little suggests is too small again.
Villain then check-raises a decent size, and Hero calls. The turn then brings the J? and a half-pot bet from the opponent.
"I think here, Hero has an easy fold," Little suggests, the combination of the wet board, the opponent's continued aggression, the remaining stack sizes, and Hero's lack of prospects for improving all adding up to that conclusion.
Does Hero have the discipline to do it? Watch below and find out.
As you do, listen to Little's analysis of the hand and situation, which includes discussion of several concepts...
- starting hand selection and strength
- bet sizing
- implied pot odds and set mining
- board texture
- ranges and range reading
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $7,000,000 in live tournament earnings. He writes a weekly educational blog and hosts a podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com. Sign up to learn poker from Jonathan for free at PokerCoaching.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanLittle.
The Stars Group owns a majority shareholding in iBus Media.
