I haven't encountered a terribly interesting hand in the past week, but in order to avoid too long a lay-off in my entries, I'll discuss a hand I encountered last night in a multi-table tourney. This hand reminded me a book I read written by a poker pro. The pro is notorious for keeping notes on hands played throughout a tournament. In his book, he revealed every hand he played during a major tournament he eventually won. That book is part of the inspiration for this blog. In all the hands he played over the two-day tournament, there were only 5 or 6 hands he considered crucial to winning the tournament.
Final table or a 5 table sit-n-go tournament. Its worth noting the buy-in for this tournament was $1, but the play at the final stages of the tournament seemed pretty straight-forward. Nine players remain of the 45 entrants. The top stacks remaining have stacks in the neighborhood of 10,000 to 12,000 chips. The three bottom stacks range from 1,500 to 3,300 chips. Seven players will receive a pay-out, with only about $13 going to first place and $1.70 going to seventh. The blinds are 300/600. Player A has 5,500 chips. Player E has 10,500 chips. I am Player E in this hand.
Player A is first to act, and he raises to 1,800 chips. All players fold to Player E, who calls for 1,800. All other players in the hand fold. The pot contains 4,500.
The flop is 8 6 2, all spades. Player A acts first again, and leads out for 1,800, which is more than half of his remaining stack. Player E raises Player A all-in for his remaining stack. Player A calls. The pot contains about 12,000 chips.
Player A shows Q Q, with the Queen of spades. Player E shows 9 9, with no spades. The turn and river are no help to Player E, and Player A wins the pot. Player A and Player E essentially flip chip stacks. I was left with about 5,000 chips after the hand. I managed to hang in long enough to finish 6th in this tournament, but was unable to recover from this hand.
My thoughts on the hand:
From the outset, I think I played this hand poorly, and got the outcome I deserved. There were a number of clues to suggest I was behind in this hand every step of the way. Player A had 5,500 chips at the start of the hand, putting him in the middle of the remaining players or about at chip average. However, the blinds were 300/600, so he could only survive six more rotations through the blinds. Rather than pushing all-in, he elected to only raise 3 times the big blind. So, even with a diminishing ship stack, he appeared to be looking for action. An all-in bet would have been more indicative of two unsuited, unpaired cards. But even if he had something like K 10, I was still no better than 50/50, and likely behind when I made the call pre-flop.
No matter what came on the flop, I anticipated he would go all-in. Instead, he bet 1,800 again, or about 1/3 of the pot. Again, Player A was practically begging for a call. Unfortunately, the flop was safe for my hand. But when raising Player A all-in, I was mostly hoping he had committed himself to the hand with A K or A Q.
The status of the tournament should have provided some extra insight. There were several short stacks, and Player A could have been content to wait a few more hands and hope some of the short stacks got knocked out - hoping to make the money. Player A instead chose to get active. Given his position at the table and his chip stack, this was another clue he had a strong hand.
My own position in the tournament argues for not playing the nines. I was third in chip position, and safely on my way to making the money, not to mention in position to potentially win the tourney. Instead, I ignored or dicounted the warning signs (perhaps because of the size of my stack) and ended up limping to the finish. If I was going to call an all-in, I would have preferred to go up against one of the smaller stacks, who likely would have been pushing with lesser holdings and posed a smaller threat to my chip stack. I risked over half of my stack on a hand where I was far less than 50% to win.
Pot odds cannot be ignored here. Pre-flop I was being offered a chance to win 4,500 for a risk of 1,800. That's suitable if I were simply facing a coin flip. After the flop, I was being offered a chance to win 6,300 for a risk of 1,800, great odds again. Too good to be true, it turns out. If I had a more sizable stack at the start of the hand, then playing this hand out is probably okay. But again, I couldn't put the pieces together fast enough. One moment of shaky thinking really cost me.
In the end, this was a crucial hand for my tournament life. I didn't watch the finish to see whether Player A was able to ride the momentum to a win, but I wish I did. You never know when these crucial moments will come up, which is why being able to pay attention and think clearly throughout the tournament is so important.
Got any tips for avioding these types of lapses in judgment? Sound off in the comments section, and thanks for reading.
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