Hand No. 10

This hand was interesting because it reflects some of the issues I've been discussing in recent entries.

There are 6 people in this tournament, we were short-handed at my home game this week. The blinds are 300/600. There are a couple of large stacks at the table, but most everyone is at a comfortable chip level. Player C and the Dealer have around 12,500 chips. Player C had just recently used a rebuy. I am Player C in this hand.

Player A and Player B fold. Player C raised to 1,600. The Dealer raises to 3,200. The SB and BB fold. Player C calls the additional 1,600. The pot is 7,300.

The flop is J 5 J, with two spades. Player C is first to act and bets 3,000. The Dealer quickly calls. The pot is now 13,300.

The turn is the Ace of spades. Player C checks and the Dealer pushes all-in for about 6,000. After much contemplation, Player C calls. Player C had the Dealer covered by 100 chips. Player C shows J 3, both clubs. The Dealer shows K Q, with no spades.

The river is a red 6. Player C wins a pot of approximately 25,000 with a set of Jacks.

My thoughts on the hand:

We'll start with the pre-flop raise made by Player C. This was an attempt on my part to simply steal the blinds with an otherwise unplayable hand. There are a number of factors to consider when making this type of move. You should be aware of the number of players remaining in the hand, as well as the playing tendencies of those remaining. Are they solid players, or are they players who will call a raise with a marginal hand? You also need to be able to let the hand go if you encounter serious resistance in the form of a big re-raise. You have to occasionally make this type of move to keep your opponents off-balance. If you only raise with premium hands, then you are less likely to get action from your opponents.

In this case, two players had folded ahead of me, and I figured a raise might work to collect the blinds, which at this point is not an inconsequential amount. I also have a hand I would happily dump if someone made a big re-raise. The Dealer did raise, but only raised just above the minimum. This raise may not have been designed to get me to fold, but instead reveal how strongly I felt about my hand. Since I simply called rather than put in another raise, I revealed that my hand may not be all that strong. Nevertheless, when the action came back to me it cost me 1,600 to see a flop on a potential pot of 7,300. At this point I decided to call and proceed with caution.

The flop was great for my hand. The presence of two Jacks on the board and one in my hand made it very unlikely the Dealer has a Jack as well. At this point I feel pretty good about my hand. I bet 3,000 on the flop for two reasons: 1) the presence of two spades on the board, and 2) I felt if my opponent hand an over-pair to the board, he would probably re-raise and I would be able to get all my chips into the pot with the best hand. The Dealer elected to call, which made me consider whether he had a spade draw or possibly a pocket pair lower than the Jacks.

The turn was the Ace of spades, and I made a mistake by checking rather than betting out again. I'll get to that later, but the Dealer pushing all-in was a great bet because it made me seriously consider whether he did have two spades in his hand. The bet was especially creative, because the Dealer correctly figured I would be reluctant to risk all my chips after just recently using a rebuy. If I lost this hand, I would be finished for the tournament.

I took a lot of time to consider my call. This first thing to do was to reconstruct the hand and try to figure a range of hands that the Dealer might be holding based on the betting in the hand. The Dealer made a re-raise on the flop. Again, I think this was a test raise to see how serious I was about my hand. At the time of the raise, I figured to dealer had two big cards like A K or A Q, or a high pair. The Dealer's call of my bet on the turn was suspicious - if the Dealer was holding a high pair, he may have raised again on the flop. His call suggested a drawing hand, and the only drawing hand was the spade flush draw. His all-in on the turn made sense if the Dealer was holding A K, as he may believe he now had the best hand, and wanted to discourage my potential draw to a flush. If the Dealer was trying to represent the flush on the turn, then that would have meant he made the pre-flop re-raise with something like K x or Q x of spades. In the end, that didn't make as much sense to me, and I decided the Dealer was most likely holding A K and was hoping his pair of Aces was now in the lead.

At this point, I still wasn't ready to make the call. I then had to consider the pot odds. If I truly believed the Dealer had a flush, did I have the pot odds to make a call, knowing I had potentially seven outs on the river (3 Aces, 3 Fives, 1 Jack)? The bet was 6,000 and the pot would be 25,000+ with my call. I'm not sure the pot odds were in my favor. Alternatively, I did have a big hand, and an opportunity to win a big pot. Reconstructing the hand, along with the size of the pot, ultimately led me to call the bet. It turns out the Dealer needed a 10 on the river to win the pot, and I was able to avoid disaster.

Back to my mistake on the turn. Rather than maintain control of the hand by betting out again, I opted to check to see what the Dealer would do. The Dealer's all-in bet forced me to make a tough decision for almost all of my chips. If I had bet out again, I would have been compelled to call any raise as I would have been committed to the pot. Sometimes, you can make your decisions easier by betting. By betting, I would have been creating mush better pot odds for my eventual call.

Obviously, there is an argument that my original raise pre-flop was a mistake. You can get into real trouble playing marginal hands when you catch a piece of the flop. Usually you end up committed to a pot where you have kicker problems. In this case though, the flop hit my hand so hard I had to continue on with the hand.

The Dealer's play in this hand demonstrates how you can use the board to win a pot even when you don't have a hand. The Dealer attempted to use the presence of a flush possibility to bet me off of my hand. This play works best against knowledgeable opponents. You can only make this play against someone who can recognize the hand you are representing, and will be willing to give you credit for holding the cards needed to make the hand. But even if the Dealer's play didn't work, he still had outs going to the river.

Hands like these can be pivotal in a tournament. Had I elected to give the Dealer credit for a big hand and folded, I would have been left with about 6,000 chips. With the blinds at 300/600, I only would have enough chips for about 7 rotations around the table. Instead, I was able to double up and was in a comfortable position moving forward. As always, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section. Thanks for reading.