Frankie of Next Gen Poker Cried After This Brutal Cash Game Hand
Poker can be a brutal game at times and nobody knows this better than Frank "Frankie" Cucchiara from Next Gen Poker.
Frankie from Next Gen Poker recently joined me to discuss a hand that he played during a meet-up cash game that they had at the Texas Card House in Austin, Texas. It ended up with Frankie having to leave his own meet-up game and going to sit by himself at Home Depot where he cried a few (or many) tears.
This poker cash game is $1/$3 with extremely deep stacks as they are over 600 big blinds deep! Frankie started with $500 but after many double board Pot-Limit Omaha bomb pots he has managed to run up his stack to $2,000 just before this poker hand takes place.
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In this strategy column, I discuss what you should consider when playing extremely deep-stacked cash games. Suited connectors that will not make nut flushes and therefore, they go down in value as you may end up losing a huge pot if you hit a flush. This is especially true if you are playing against tight opponents who will only stack off if they have the nuts.
The hand kicked off with a $15 raise from the hijack and a call from the button before Frankie called in the big blind with 9♦7♦ as the under-the-gun player also came along.
Frankie has a good enough hand to call with, although you do want to be careful with suited connectors when playing super deep-stacked because of reverse-implied odds. Sometimes you will make a flush or straight and lose with a hand like nine-seven suited.
The flop landed 8♠10♣J♣ to give Frankie the second nut straight and action folded to the hijack, who bet $35. Frankie raised to $150. The hijack called.
Frankie said he felt he could go with a big raise here because there are a lot of strong hands like two pair that his opponent could have and he could get value from. The hijack called.
The turn brought the K♠ and Frankie bet a hefty $250 before the hijack put in a sizable raise to $800.
What would you do on the turn if you were Frankie?
- Call
- Raise All In
- Fold
Frankie is in a difficult spot because he has no fold equity and would likely need to call off on the river if the flush comes in. Frankie needs to have some hands here that he calls the raise and check-calls on the river, and I think a straight like this is one of them.
Frankie pushed all in for a total of $1,735 and was met with a snap call from the opponent with A♦Q♠ for a higher straight to have Frankie drawing dead on both runouts.
This was an unfortunate situation from Frankie against an opponent who made a loose float on the flop with a gunshot. However, you can do this in super deep-stacked games because you are likely to get paid when you do spike.
For more on this hand, check out my breakdown in the following video:
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.
