I dropped a bunch of money on tournament buyins yesterday, and today I’ve got nothing to show for it but one shallow cash. If I recall correctly, I played:
Bodog 100K
Stars $1.5 Million
UB whatever their guarantee is
FTP 400K
Stars WSOP satellite
Stars Second Chance
FTP Mulligan
I got off to a strong start in the FTP tourneys and the Stars second chance, but only made the money in the 400K. I’ll get back to that in a second, but first I want to share an interesting hand from fairly early in the second chance. With blinds at 25/50, I raised to 150 UTG with KK. UTG+1, MP2, and the CO all called. The flop was something very dry lik Q74, and I elected to check. For one thing, I think that betting very clearly defines my hand here, and for another, the CO had a tendence to overbet the pot with vulnerable one-pair hands, so I thought this would be a good way to trap him if he had something.
So I checked, UTG+1 checked, a fairly solid player in MP2 bet about half pot, and the CO folded. This looked kind of like a probe bet, as though he wanted to avoid giving a free card and see who folded and who stuck around without inflating the pot. I called, and then UTG+1 raised. MP2 folded, and I had a decision to make. I wasn’t sure if I was up against a set, two pair, or just a badly played Queen (one should never rule out badly played hands in this tournament). Seeing that I had a note on this player, I decided to see what Past Andrew had chosen to record for the purpose of helping Future Andrew make decisions such as this. Past Andrew’s note to me read “Overvalues top pair, top kicker with deep stacks.” I moved all in, he called with AQ, and I took his stack. Thanks Past Andrew!
The other hand I want to look at really got me thinking, though it’s painful to recall. Blinds were 800/1600/200. My stack of 45,100 was decently above average with like 150 players left (bubble was around 300). I raised to 4400 from the CO and the BB, who had me covered, calls pretty quickly.
The flop was J53r, and he bet into me for 6400. On a board this dry, he is bluffing/probe betting here about 95% of the time. However, a raise by me would also look quite like a bluff, so I elected to call, planning to take it away on a future street.
A 9 came on the turn, putting a flush draw on the board. He bet 11,200. Now very confident that I was ahead, I called again, leaving about 25,000 behind and a pot of nearly 50,000. This is where I think I made a mistake. I felt that he was bluffing and so I might as well just call and give him the chance to bluff the river. But with the pot already twice that of my stack, this is probably a big mistake. Even if I’m ahead here, he likely has outs, possibly quite a few on the river, and it’s very unlikely he’ll fire a third barrel with air when he can’t bet more than half the pot. However, I can’t really afford to fold the river, which means that he can value bet whenever he improves.
And that, of course, is what happened. The river was an off-suit T, adn eh bet 12,800, about 25% of the pot. This is sooooooo unlikely to be a bluff. I nearly folded but figured it could be a blocking bet with an even worse hand (stupid assumption) about 20% of the time. He has KQs for the rivered nuts.
As much as this one hurt, I’m glad it led me to reflect a bit more on this situation where I’m ahead but can’t afford to fold the river and can’t expect my opponent to bluff. It’s a rare situation where moving all in even though you’ll never be called by a worse hand is the right play.