Hand No. 1

8 players at the table, relatively early in the tournament. Everyone is close to original chip stack of 16,000. Blinds are at 200/400. I am Player A in this hand and first to act pre-flop.

Player A raises to 1300 with 5s 5c. All players at the table call for 1300. The pot is now 10,400. The flop is Qd 10d 4o. BB bets 2500. Player A folds. Player B raises to 6000. Player C calls. All other players fold around to BB, who calls the additional 3500. Pot is now 28,400.

Turn is a 6o. BB checks, Player B goes all-in for final 6,300. Palyer C calls, and BB calls. BB has 1200 left. Pot is now 47,300.

River is 9o. BB checks, Palyer C puts BB all-in for 1200. BB calls. Showdown: Player B has AQ, Player C has KQ, and BB has Kd 10d. Player B wins main pot with pair of Queens, Ace kicker. Player C wins small side-pot with pair of Queens, King kicker.

Some thoughts about this hand:

My initial raise was probably a poor play. Pocket 5s are the kind of hand you like to limp in and hope to flop a set or a bunch of low cards. Once the queen and the 10 hit the board, and the with whole table left to act after me, I was done with the hand.

Player B made a good play to raise the BB's bet on the flop. The flop presented both a strait and a flush draw, and Player B had the whole table (minus Player A) to act behind him. Also, after the hand one player showed he folded pocket 6s to the raise on the flop. The turn would have given this player a set of 6s. Player Bs raise not only dissuaded the drawing hands from sticking around, but also bet out pairs below the board to prevent them from sticking around and spiking their set. 2500 may have been enticing enough for the 6s to hang around, but the raise to 6000 shoved him out.

Finally, the most interesting aspect of this hand occurred during the betting pre-flop. I raised the bet to 1300. Everyone behind me simply called the raise to 1300. I would have loved to have seen one of the last players to act put in a big re-raise, somewhere in the neighborhood of 6000 to 7500. The fact that everyone only called indicated they had decent, but not great cards. Had someone held something like pockets Qs or higher, they would have put in a raise already. Hands like that are great against one or two players, but not against an entire table. You also had people in middle position calling just because they were priced in. The pot was building 1300 chips at a time, so it would have been a decent take for someone in late position. A big re-raise from late position probably could have knocked out the marginal hands and those who called due to pot odds.

The other thing a re-raise would have going for it is something called the squeeze play or the sandwich effect. Since so many people had called already, each player left to act after the big re-raise would have had the players behind them to worry about too. Therefore it would have been harder to call the big re-raise with something less then a big pocket pair.

Opportunities like this don't come often, and its tough to put in a big re-raise if you're not holding decent cards. I recall trying this one-time and I still got one caller. Though I was ahead pre-flop, the caller outdrew me on the flop and I lost all my chips.

Feel free to share you're thoughts about this hand in the comments section. I'd be especially interested in what you have to say about the big re-raise idea. Thanks for reading.