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 five players remaining in a mid-stakes tournament. You’ve already outlasted a huge field and are guaranteed a big payday. With 1,220,000, you are in fourth place. There is one short stack still in the tournament.
The blinds are 20,000-40,000 with a 5,000 ante, giving you just over 30 big blinds to work with. You look down at A
A
in the cutoff and raise to 80,000.
The big blind, an aggressive older gentlemen with a lot of experience, makes the call. He started the hand with 1,385,000, having you barely covered. The flop is K
5 3 and your opponent checks.
You bet 85,000 and he calls. The turn is the Q and once again, he checks. You bet 160,000 and he check-raises to 415,000. You call and the river is the 2.
Your opponent checks. You have 635,000 remaining and your opponent has 800,000.
The Questions
Do you bet or check behind? If betting, how much? Can you get your opponent to call with a worse hand? What makes this a good opportunity to go for a value bet? Why would your opponent check-raise the turn and then shut down on the river? If checking, what kind of hands do you expect your opponent to turn over?
What Actually Happened
In the World Series of Poker $1,000 no-limit hold’em event, Dominik Nitsche opted to check behind holding AA on a board reading K53Q2.
His opponent, Bob Bounahra, showed down KJ and Nitsche took the pot. Bounahara doubled up on the very next hand and went on to finish in third place, earning $145,229. Nitsche went on to defeat Dave D’Alesandro heads-up to earn his third WSOP bracelet and the $335,659 first-place prize.
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.
