World Poker Tour Bellagio 2006 - Day Three

Why would you ever want to play a silly hand like the 4 2? Well, sometimes a hand like that can win you a big pot, and it's hardly a coincidence that guys like "The Grinder," Phil Ivey, Erick Lindgren, myself, and others are often caught in big hands with goofy little suited connectors.

On day three of the $15,000 buy-in World Poker Tour event at Bellagio, I found myself in such a hand. I was doing rather well in the tournament, starting the day with more than $200,000 in chips, and was at a pretty juicy table. When I say juicy, I don't mean that there was lots of crazy action, really; it was more that my opponents were ABC players, for the most part.

With the blinds at $1,500-$3,000 with an ante, I limped in from under the gun with the 4 2. A conservative player on my immediate left raised to $15,000, and he was pretty deep-stacked as well, so I called the additional $12,000. The flop wasn't particularly good for me, Q 10 2, but it did give me a pair, a backdoor-flush draw, and some bluffing potential with the coordinated board and two diamonds. I checked, and my opponent bet $30,000. While that was a pretty substantial bet, I was still getting more than 2-to-1 odds on my money, and there was an outside chance that my small pair was the best hand if he held A-K. Plus, if he held 9-9 or J-J, there was a good chance that I'd get two free cards to the river. Or, even if he did have an overpair like A-A or K-K, if I was able to catch a deuce or a 4 on the turn or river, I might be able to bust him completely.

As it turned out, the turn card helped me just a little bit. It was the 3, giving me a flush draw. I considered betting out, hoping to get myself a cheaper draw, but then thought that it might be best to check, hoping that my opponent also checked. If I bet, say, $30,000, and my opponent moved all in, I'd be wasting $30,000 without being able to see the river card anyway. So, I checked, as did my opponent.

I don't know what it was, but the way in which he checked led me to believe that he was checking with an overpair. That's the kind of stuff I simply couldn't teach you, but something inside me told me that he was half setting a trap for me and half being careful with an overpair.
On the river, it didn't matter all that much, since I hit a deuce, but it did have some relevance, in that it would affect my bet size on the river. With an overpair, I would expect him to have to call a large bet, whereas if I thought he had J-J, 9-9, or A-K, I may have to make a smaller bet, hoping to price him into a loose call.

Eventually, I decided to bet out $68,000. My opponent looked flustered, and said, "Why do I have a feeling that you just hit that deuce?" I was a little stunned! How did this guy put me on a deuce? He must read my column.

Anyway, he finally was forced to call the bet, so I had a chance to see his hand as he turned it faceup. Pocket aces. Yikes, that was an ugly beat, but could it have been avoided?

This is a situation in which my opponent made a betting error and let me win this pot. At this point in the tournament, a pot with close to $100,000 in it isn't a pot that you should be fooling around with - especially with such a scary board that contained a potential straight draw and two possible flush draws.

Had my opponent made the correct play and moved all in with his aces, he would have won himself a decent-sized pot and punished me for playing a suited connector from out of position.

After being lucky enough to win this hand, I went on a tear for much of day three. My stack grew to more than $600,000, and thus far I had had absolutely no adversity whatsoever. It had been smooth sailing. Then, the table broke and I hit a rough patch, losing two rather large pots after flopping two pair, and then losing a few other key pots.

My goal was to end day three with $500,000 in chips, but I fell far short, ending the day with just $174,000, which was good for 31st place out of the remaining 33 players. The funny thing was, I wasn't worried a bit. The blinds would be only $6,000-$12,000, so I knew that I had more than enough chips to play. Now, had this been the WPT Foxwoods structure, the blinds would have been closer to $20,000-$40,000, leaving me little to no chance to maneuver, but with a slow-moving structure like the Bellagio event's, you don't need to focus so much on how you are doing in relation to the average stack; instead, it enables you to focus simply on how you are doing in relation to the blinds and antes.

You can read Daniel's blog and play poker with him at www.fullcontactpoker.com.