Strategy with Kristy: Mike McDonald Narrows Opponent's Hand Range Preflop
Mike McDonald is the youngest player ever to win a European Poker Tour event, currently sites second in the Global Poker Index Player of the Year race, and is this week's guest on the Strategy with Kristy podcast.
In the interview, McDonald breaks down a hand he played in the $109 rebuy he won on PokerStars a couple of weeks ago. Here is a snippet during which he illustrated how he narrowed his opponent's hand range preflop.
"We're down to the final nine. Since PokerStars payouts are not top heavy, there's more incentive to come top four than there is in a live event. Blinds were 12,000/25,000 with an average stack of about 780,000 at this point. There is one short stack that has three big blinds and average is around 31 big blinds. I have 35 big blinds. Big stack as 50 big blinds. A guy min-raises from the hijack, and he's one of the guys that isn't a [regular player] in the tournament. He has 32 big blinds. I three-bet the small blind to five big blinds with ace-king offsuit. A pretty good player who has me covered with about 42 big blinds cold calls from the big blind. This is a spot here that if he cold four-bets, it could be light so I wouldn't be making big folds. So, I think it's pretty unlikely he'd ever just call a hand that he's happy getting it in with. When he cold calls my three-bet, I generally think he has something like pocket sevens through tens, ace-jack suited, king-queen suited, ace-queen. Basically, hands he's not that comfortable getting it in with, but one that if the opener is loose and I could be three-betting light, then his hand stacks up reasonably well against my hand."
To hear the rest of the hand, check out the full interview:
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