Coileen,


While I have of course never met Bruce's opponent, and while his $160 raise is rather bizarre (a typical raise would be much larger), it is unlikely that Bruce's overcards are good if they hit against a typical opponent. Likely hands for his opponent to have are a set of 10s, 9s, or 4s, QhJh, A10s, and the less likely 109s. Against the sets, Bruce's hand wins 35%, against the QhJh it wins 60%, against A10s it wins 45%, and against the 109s it wins 35%. There are 9 way for his opponent to have a set, which I will count as 8 ways, since he may not play pocket 4s. There is one way to have QhJh. It's hard to say how many A10s combos there are from the hand description, so let's say 2.5. There are 3 ways to have 109s, but I'll count that as 1.5 ways, because it is likely that he would have folded that preflop. Summing these weighted probabilities gives you the result that Bruce's hand will end up a winner 30% of the time if the money goes in on the flop. Of course, there is some chance that Bruce's opponent doesn't have one of those hands, but if that is the case, it's also probably true that he won't call Bruce's all in bet. While calling means that Bruce may get moved off of his hand on the turn with a bluff, it also means that Bruce will miss the chance to get his opponents bluff money if Bruce makes a flush on the turn. All in all, I think that Bruce is probably better off calling here than raising.


With that said, moving lots of chips in with a big draw is a great move in big bet if done at the right time. I just don't think that this is a great spot.


-Dan