He Folded a Full House to Two All-Ins and Was Right: Bart Hanson Breaks Down the Hand
Step into the DojoFree poker against bots that learn. Earn your belt. Dojo Coin is play money.JOIN NOWQuick answer: On a CrushLivePoker call-in, a first-time caller named Mitchell described a $1/$2 Toronto home game where he made sixes full of eights on the river, called one all-in, and then folded when a second player shoved over the top. Bart Hanson said he liked the fold. The cards proved them right. The limper had pocket eights for quads, and the short stack had pocket fives for fives full.
The setup
The caller said the game started among friends in Toronto and grew into "a mix of friends and not so much friends." It was a $1/$2 game with a $300 max buy-in. He was about 160 big blinds deep. The short stack in the hand had around 80 big blinds.
Preflop, one player limped and the next player raised to $8. The cutoff called, and the caller called on the button with red pocket sixes. The small blind and the original limper also called, so five players saw a flop with about $40 in the pot.
Flop and turn
The flop came 8♣ 5♣ 8♥ and everyone checked. Hanson said he might have put in a small bet of about $20 to $25 there. He reasoned that at low stakes, players rarely check overpairs.
The turn was the 7♥, which gave the caller an open-ended straight draw. The small blind led for $14, and the limper and the cutoff called. Getting roughly six to one, the caller called too. Hanson agreed that the price was good enough to take a card with something like two to ten outs.
The river: sixes full, then chaos
The 6♠ on the river gave the caller sixes full of eights. The small blind checked, the limper bet about $30, and the short-stacked cutoff jammed for about $140.
Hanson called that first jam a tough spot. At $1/$2, pocket fives was the only full house that sixes full beat. Still, he said he had "seen so much crap" at small stakes that he would not fold there. He also preferred a call to a raise because a call keeps the limper in. The caller tank-called.
Then the limper re-raised all in. Hanson said he thought this became a fold. The caller now had to beat two players, and a three-bet all-in on that board from a typical low-stakes player rarely comes with less than a strong full house. The caller folded.
The limper showed pocket eights for quads. The cutoff showed pocket fives for fives full. It was full house versus full house versus quads.
Lessons for your game
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- Multiway strength stacks up. One all-in can be a bluff or an overplayed hand. Two players committing their stacks on a paired, connected board is a different story.
- List the hands you beat. Here the only full house that lost to sixes full was fives full. Straights were possible, but a straight rarely three-bets all in multiway.
- Calling can beat raising. Hanson's call-over-jam idea is to let a worse hand keep betting.
- Low-stakes players trap. The caller noted that many players check-raise or slow-play strong hands and bet big when they have air.
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FAQ
Should you ever fold a full house?
Sometimes. In this hand, folding sixes full to two all-ins was right because both opponents had better hands.
What did the opponents have?
Pocket eights for quad eights, and pocket fives for fives full, on an 8-5-8-7-6 board.
What stakes was the game?
A $1/$2 home game in Toronto with a $300 max buy-in.
Who is Bart Hanson?
Bart Hanson is the owner and lead pro of CrushLivePoker, a training site built around live cash games.
Where can I practice tough spots for free?
At Superintelligencepoker.com, where you play free 6-max games against AI bots with play-money Dojo Coin.
Sources
- CrushLivePoker, "Full House vs 2 ALL-INS in a Home Game Gone MAD" (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SQ5P8g_O3M
- Viral Podcast Shorts clip: https://youtube.com/shorts/sfI3rFzC6KY
- CrushLivePoker About page: https://www.crushlivepoker.com/about
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