Hand Reviews — Poker Streamer Benjamin Spragg Spraggy

Hand #1 – Spraggy – Hot $22 PKO

We find that Spraggy likes to play fast, especially at lower stakes where , and he can sometimes talk himself into  

In a recent $22 PKO hand we featured (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAz9MXYBUOs) Ben finds pocket aces with blinds at 900 and 1800 with a 225 ante and a 19.5BB stack.  He min-raises from middle position and pulls both blinds into a flop of Nine-Seven-Seven with two hearts and both blinds check, as does Spraggy.  The King of Diamonds comes on the turn and brings a 6300 bet from the big blind which suits Ben just fine. 

The small blind gets out of the way to reveal another king on the river.  The pot is now over 26k, and Ben’s stack is just below that, and the big blind – with a much larger stack and several bounties already in his bag checks.  This induces a shove from Ben and the big blind cannot get their chips into the middle fast enough to reveal – pocket sevens for flopped quads. Ben’s caviller way of playing this hand saw him hit the rail – and he was not impressed.

This hand is a good reminder to players that if we see our opponent doing something unexpected that we must ask why – here, Ben’s pocket aces may have blinded him to the fact that the big blind did something odd – donk betted on a 977K board. 

Perhaps Ben thought that the big blind was testing him because the board didn’t hit Ben’s range and that Ben checked the flop, but ultimately the big blind was laying the trap, not Ben and it cost Ben his tournament life and earned the big blind another bounty to their already large total.

Hand #2 – Spraggy – Big $44

Here we see what happens when a Spraggy bluff goes bad – 9 in the tournament at this moment, Spraggy is 4^th and they are playing 8 handed tables, and Ben’s table has only 4 players. Ben has 5000 chips, and we have 15 and 30 blinds with a 3-chip ante when Ben wakes up to Ace-Two rainbow in the big blind and has the small blind limp to him. Spraggy goes up to 120 and the small blind obliges. 

The flop is 10 5 3 Ten-Five-Three with two hearts and Ben c-bets 100 and gets called again.  The turn brings a second club and a seven, and the small blind wants to take charge, betting 145 and Ben jumps up to 660, which gets called.  The river comes a third club and a Jack and gets immediately checked by the small blind.  Ben goes into the tank to craft the perfect sized bet to steal the pot, sending 1425 into a 1774 chip pot, and feeling like he’s capable of pulling off a bluff here. However, the small blind doesn’t buy the story, calls and takes the pot down with second pair.  And again, Ben is not impressed.

Early in tournaments we must remember that while we have a lot of room for error, so do our opponents and if we are going to turn our hand into a bluff, two things have to be in place: our story has to be believable, and, the other player cannot have a hand to make a call with on the river. Here, only one of those pieces of info is in place – Ben’s story is believable – he is repping top pair or better by the way this hand played out, and he was trying to discourage the small blind from chasing their flush. 

The challenge with Ben’s story though is he had the ace of hearts, making a flush draw harder to have.  Had a third heart hit, Ben’s story becomes a lot more believable to the small blind and their pair of tens would be a much more difficult call to make.  Here, Ben recognizing that the flush missed fully expected a fold on the river – instead he saw his chips go across the table.

Hand #3 – Spraggy – $530 Bounty Builder

We jump up in stakes to a more recent hand posted in our highlight videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfv5aTHEOuo) Ben is battling in the $530 Bounty Builder with a 28.2k big blind stack and find two ladies in the small blind in a hand that everyone has folded up to this point and he has raised to 2100.  The Big blind has a slightly smaller stack than Ben and calls the raise. 

The flop comes Queen-Six-Two with two diamonds and Spraggy is loving life!  He c-bets 1159 and gets raised to 3500!  Surprised, he calls and checks the J on the turn, only to see the big blind check behind. The river is the 10 , completing a flush and straight draw and Ben plays it cautiously, checking – only to have the big blind shove on him!  He tanks, but calls – only to see his opponent with a stone-cold bluff! 

He just wrote about how a bluff needs two pieces to be in place to get it through and there was no chance Ben was ever folding quads here. It is quite unlucky to run into the very top of someone’s range on this board but there was no chance a bluff was ever going to really work for Ben’s opponent. 

Every draw got there in the end and if you are going to risk bluffing your entire stack on King high, you had better be sure that your opponent was only calling with top pair. Sometimes this works but there’s an additional element to this one that applies to PKO’s when it comes to getting a bluff through – you better not have your bounty up for grabs. 

Having $125 on the table for a correct call grows the size of Ben’s calling range – which is why it’s more difficult to get this bluff through. Table dynamics plays a big part in being successful and not recognizing all of the circumstances could lead to an early exit, as Ben’s opponent found out really quickly.

Hand #4 – $27 Daily Eliminator PKO

We shift now to a hand Ben played in a $27 Daily Eliminator PKO tournament where we find our hero in big blind with Ace-Jack offsuit and a player in middle position raising to 500, which Ben elected to flat being out of position. 

On the flop of Jack-Ten-Five rainbow, the initial raiser continued for 519 and Ben check-raises up to 1800 with his top pair – which gets called.  On the 10 turn, Ben bets roughly half-pot – 2132 into a 5330 pot and the middle position player obliges, going to the river.  With Ben’s SPR hovering around 0.6, Spraggy shoves his last 5268 on a 4 brick, and the middle position player snap calls his, collecting his bounty and a mountain of chips.

Timing is everything in poker and in this spot, Ben elected for the fast and furious road again, taking control of the pot away from the player in position with top pair, top kicker. Against a lot of hands that his opponent could have, Ben attempted to build the pot thinking that his top pair was good, but was unlucky that his opponent wasn’t just going after his bounty with a sub-par hand; in fact Ben’s aggression led to his early demise in this.

Hand #5 – $530 Bounty Builder

Our final hand is not doom and gloom for Spraggy – we jump into a $530 Bounty Builder and Ben wakes up to pocket nines in middle position – he has around 21k at the start of the hand with blinds of 175 and 350 and raises to 770. 

The big blind takes exception, three-betting him to 3325 and Ben decides to continue with his middle pair. The flop is a dream Queen-Nine-Nine rainbow, and the blind continues for 1400 to which Ben happily clicks Call.  The turn sees the 2 peel off and again the blind bets 4375 into a 11k pot – and again, Ben simply calls.  While alarm bells aren’t going off in the big blind’s head we aren’t sure, but on the 4 river, the big blind shoves and Ben can’t hit call fast enough to secure the full double up and deny the big blind his bounty.

The theme of this article is definitely timing is everything in poker and being in the right hand with the right hole cards against an opponent willing to bluff ace high for a $125 bounty and that’s exactly what Ben had happen here. The only disappointing part of this hand for Spraggy – his pocket nines would have held up if he never improved but his daily dose of quads was a massive boost for Ben in this tournament and a very ill-timed bluff by the big blind. 

Keep in mind that in a PKO the goal is to accumulate chips to be able to go after bounties, and the big blind had been running well up until this point.  After this hand, the blind went back to starting stack essentially but still covered other players at the table, but Ben became table captain as a result of this one, putting himself in excellent position to secure more bounties.

Ben Spragg is a great example of a low stakes streamer that understood how to market himself initially; build a strong community and capture the eyes of one of online poker’s biggest operators to propel his professional career forward.  It’s not clear where Spraggy would have been today had it not been for being a member of Team PokerStars, but the partnership has been beneficial to both sides through Spraggy’s tenure with the company – and no reason to think it’s going to change anytime soon!