Hand No. 4

This hand provides a good example of how to play your way into trouble with A K.

A little under one hour into a multi-table tournament. Over 300 players remain out of a starting field of 450. Blinds are 50/100. The three players involved in the hand have just over 3,000 chips, while the chip average is 2,000. The BB has been playing with a wide range of hands and his chip stack has fluctuated wildly. Player A at one time had over 7,000 chips, but had recently come back to the pack. Player E's play has been pretty standard.

Player A raises to 200. Action folds around to Player E, who calls the 200. SB folds, but BB calls the extra 100. Pot is 650 heading to the flop.

The flop shows 7h 7d 3d. BB checks, Players A & E also check.

The turn is the Ace of spades. BB checks. Player A bets 700. Player E calls 700. BB raises to 1,400. Player A goes all-in, Player E calls for the remainder of his chips. BB calls the all-in bets, and barely has the other two players covered. BB shows 9c7c, Player A shows Ac 3s, and Player E shows Ad Kd. The pot is now a little over 9,000.

The river is a useless 8 of spades. BB wins a very large pot with trip 7s. The BB now has over 9,000 chips to play with. Players A & E are knocked out of the tournament.

My thoughts on the hand:

Player A made a min-raise in first position with A 3 unsuited. As we have discussed before, this may not be enough of a raise to really define any other player's hands. Player A also had a player in the BB who had shown a willingness to play for big pots with any two cards. Nevertheless, Player A only got two callers with his raise. The flop paired Player A's 3, giving him two pair. Player A elected to check rather than make a continuation bet or a bet that could have ended the hand. The presence of two 7s on the flop made is less likely anyone else was holding a 7 (though not impossible obviously). Player A's two pair may have been the best hand at the flop, and by checking he was giving any player with 4 diamonds a free chance at their draw to a flush. But again, Player A's pre-flop raise wasn't enough to give him an idea of where he was in the hand, so he may have checked in case someone limped in with a middle pair.

Player A made a better two pair on the turn when the Ace hit, but his 3 was now his kicker, and he is probably losing to anyone who called with an Ace. Now Player A tries to define his hand with a pot-sized bet, which gets called by Player E and then raised by the BB. Player A opts to push all-in at this point. Should Player A have given up at this point in the hand? Player A still had just over 2,000 chips remaining after committing about 1,000 to the pot so far. One thing about these multi-table tourneys with so many entrants is you have to collect as many chips as possible early on to outlast the ever-increasing blinds and survive an occasional bad beat. It was probably worth it to Player A to risk the remainder of his chips to build up a large stack.

Player E elected to just call the min-raise pre-flop with suited A K. Player E experienced the same problem as Player A. That bet was not enough to get rid of the BB. In fact, Player E's call gave the BB even better pot odds to call with any two cards. A bet of 4 to 5 times the big blind may have been enough to chase out the BB, and he may have bet out Player A too. That's not much value for A K, but at least Player E would have been protecting himself from the tragedy that befell him, and still would have been alive in the tournament. Player E had an opportunity to learn more about the hand on the flop, but also elected to check. It could be argued Player E needed to bet for value with 4 cards to a flush. But Player E was being given a free opportunity to make his flush, so a check here is probably okay too.

Player E had to be excited about the Ace on the turn, as he now had top two-pair with the best kicker, as well as a draw to the nut flush. Player E is probably now committed to this hand no matter what. However, Player E only called the bet of 700 from Player A on the turn. Perhaps Player E was concerned about the presence of the BB in the hand, or could sense something was up. Player E may have been trying to keep the BB in the hand, in case he also had a weaker Ace. Player E was facing the same chip-building dilemma as the other players in the tourney, and he did have some outs in case someone was holding a 7, so (combined with the strength of his hand) his call of the all-in bet makes sense.

The BB played the hand perfectly and maximized his value for the hand. The BB had the appropriate pot odds to call the pre-flop bets with his 9 7. The flop gave him exactly what he was looking for with the trip 7s. Some may argue he needed to lead out on the flop to protect against the draw to the flush. On the other hand, his hand is so strong that the BB could probably afford to risk the draws to allow other players to improve. The BB correctly guessed the turn gave at least one of the other players a pair of Aces, so chose to spring his trap by checking the turn and then raising the bets. His raise was enough to goad the Players with an Ace to go all-in. The BB may have been better served to go all-in rather than make the minimum raise on the turn. He probably had one fish hooked, but Player E's call on the turn may have been an indication he was drawing to the flush. Nevertheless, it all worked out great for the BB.

So what do you think? Is A 3 unsuited strong enough to raise from 1st position? What should Player E have done with the AK suited pre-flop? Feel free to leave your comments, and thanks for reading.