How Would You Play This Hand - NLHE $11,500 Guaranteed
Mar 31, 2008By: Full Tilt runs a daily $24+2 tournament at 12:00pm EST. You receive 3000 starting chips and the blind levels increase every 10 minutes. I prefer to play double-stack tournaments because the increased starting chip stack gives you a lot more room to play.
Today’s tournament began with 488 players. The top 45 finishers got paid. 1st place paid $2928, 2nd paid $1815 and 3rd place paid out $1346.
When I play low buy-in tournaments, I’m looking for spots to double or triple my starting stack within the first hour or go broke. I’m not interested in spending 3-4 hours treading water with a below average starting stack just to limp into the first few payouts. I’m more willing to gamble early so I can build a stack I can try to take deep into the tournament.
This doesn’t mean I’m looking to take coin flips at the first few levels. I’m trying to find a spot where I believe I’m at least a 60/40 favorite (or better) before all my chips go in. For example if I call a raise with Qh-Jh and the flop comes 9h-10h-3d, I will try to get as many chips in post flop as I can with this hand. I have two over cards to the flop and an open-ended straight/flush draw. This is a dream flop for my hand.
Low buy-in tournaments usually have lots of dead money. These are players who are unable to fold a pair or a weak draw even if it costs them their entire stack. You’ll usually run across opportunities in the first hour while dead money players are shipping chips around the table.
My first opportunity to double my starting stack came up 20 minutes into the tournament.
After only 20 minutes, there haven’t been any big pots played out. Here are the chip counts going into this hand.
MP1: 3,715
MP2: 2,910
CO: 2,970
BTN: 2,565
Hero (SB): 3,510
BB: 2,710
UTG: 3,050
UTG+1: 3,290
I’ve already picked up a couple of pots. I won one pot with top pair after my opponents showed weakness going into the turn and another when I woke up to A-A, raised it pre-flop into a player who limped from the button and decided to called my raise. I flopped a full house, checked it down to the river trying to induce a bluff and then bet out weak on the river but got no action.
How would you play this hand? With the blinds at 20/40, everyone folded to a player on the Button and he limped. I look down at A-Q Off and re-raise to 160. I’ve seen this player limp with marginal hands such as 7-10 suited and didn’t want to let him see a cheap flop. I also wanted to try and push out the player in the big blind and get heads-up. Since I’ll be playing the hand out of position, I was totally fine with taking the pot down right there. A-Q is a hand you can get into a lot of trouble with playing out of the small blind if you miss the flop.
The player in the Big Blind folded and the player on the button cold called. The flop comes 10h-9c-Ah.
With two possible draws on board, I wasn’t willing to risk slow-playing in this situation by check/raising. He may just take the free card and check behind. But, I wanted to try and get him to commit as many chips as I could. I think I’m way ahead of his pre-flop limp/calling range and I decide to bet out 160 into a 360 pot hoping for a re-raise.
He thinks for a short while and does exactly that. He re-raises me to 840. There are only four hands which have me beat after that flop (9-9, 10-10, A-A and A-K). I can’t put him on any of those hands after limp/calling from the Button and if he had a set or A-K, would why would he re-raise so much? Wouldn’t he want to make a small re-raise or just call hoping I bet out on the turn? I go with my initial read that I’m way ahead and push all-in.
He calls with A-7o.
My read was spot on and I couldn’t have asked for a better situation to get him to commit all his chips.
Unfortunately, a 7 hit the turn and a blank on the river. The poker gods didn’t cooperate. But, I’m very pleased with the way I played the hand. Sometimes, you can play a hand perfectly but it doesn’t work out.
I still had almost a 1000 chips left and finally had to push all-in with A-Qs. An early position limper called my all-in with 8-8 and his hand held.
Try not to be results oriented when you play. Just consistently make correct decisions and trust your reads. When you’re betting, calling or raising, make sure you’re thinking through the actions you take. Pay close attention to the action at your table, even if you’re not in the hand. Good luck at the tables!
