Give us your opinion in the comments section below for your chance at winning a six-month Card Player magazine digital subscription.
Ask any group of poker players how you played your hand and they’ll come up with dozens of different opinions. That’s just the nature of the game.
Each week, Card Player will select a hand from the high-stakes, big buy-in poker world, break it down and show that there’s more than one way to get the job done.
The Scenario
There are 11 players remaining at two tables in a big buy-in championship event and with a stack of 945,000 and blinds of 12,000-24,000 with a 4,000 ante, you are sitting with a below average stack of 39 big blinds.
At the six-handed table, you look down at 10
9 and raise to 55,000 from under the gun. The button, one of the larger stacks in the tournament who has been aggressively taking advantage of the final table bubble, three-bets to 126,000.
You decide to call and see a flop of 10
4 4. You check and your opponent bets 128,000. You have 815,000 left in your stack.
The Questions
Do you call, raise or fold? If raising, how much? If folding, what is your opponent’s range? If calling, what is your plan on later streets? Are you too deep stacked to move all in? Does your position as one of the shorter stacks in the tournament affect your decision? What does your opponent’s continuation bet on the flop say about his hand?
What Actually Happened
Paul Klann, WPT L.A. Poker Classic champion was gunning for back to back titles when he raised all in holding 10 9 on a flop of 10 4 4 at the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star main event.
His opponent, Danny Wong, immediately called with A
A and his hand held when the turn and river fell 9 3
.
Klann was eliminated, earning $48,890 for his 11th-place finish. Wong advanced to the final table before running A-K into pocket aces to bust in eighth place for $91,120.
The eventual winner was WeiKai Chang, who earned his first WPT title and the first-place prize of $1,138,350.
What would you have done and why? Let us know in the comments section below and try not to be results oriented. The best answer will receive a six-month Card Player magazine digital subscription.
