At the end of my last column, we were heading into the second two-hour level of the main event. The first level was a less than enjoyable experience that included folding some pretty big hands on more than one occasion. Against tough fields, I make fewer hero folds because opponents’ ranges are generally wider, and, if you are folding the top of your range against tough competition, you are going to have a nightmare of a time. Against a field like the main event that is significantly softer, I feel like I can make folds that wouldn’t be correct in other tournaments. If you ask someone like Phil Hellmuth or Mike Matusow why they make bigger folds in the main event, they will tell you that it’s because they “will find a better spot later on.” I think the real reason is different. The people you play against in the main event don’t have a very well distributed range, don’t go for value in thin spots, don’t have many bluffs for their tournament life, and their bet sizing usually tells you a significant amount about what they have. When you add all of these factors together, it makes it easier to read their hand and, as a result, you can eliminate many hands from their range and play better against them. This different style of opponent makes for interesting dynamics, and when your table is mostly populated with this type of opponent, you have to adjust accordingly.
Here’s how the next couple of levels of the main event went for me this year:
In the 100-200 level, the cutoff made it 500, I called on the button with A
J. Sometimes I reraise here and sometimes I don’t, but I wanted to take a flop in position and I would hate my situation if I got four-bet, so I decided that a flat call was the best option. We took the A-A-6 rainbow flop heads-up. My opponent checked and so did I. Against some opponents I’d bet, but I felt like this one would continue if he had anything decent, including pairs and smaller aces. Since his range is probably weighted more towards non-paired hands, I want to give him a free card to make second best. The turn is the 6
putting a flush draw on board. My opponent bets 800 and I call. I think it’s pretty clear that calling is the best play here. The river is the 2. He checks and I bet 1,000. I think I should have bet a little bit more, something like 1,500 though it doesn’t make a huge difference. His range is probably weighted towards flushes and maybe sixes-full, so he’s not folding for another 500. I also don’t want to over-bet the pot because I don’t want to set up that dynamic for later in the day, costing myself more money when I try to bluff in a similar situation. In any case, he called and mucked when I showed my hand.
I won a few other small pots in the 100-200 level, getting myself up from 14,000 to about 22,000 and I was feeling a much better vibe. I had good reads on my table and was looking forward to the next level. Early on, I lost a couple pots and then raised to 600 at 150-300 from middle position with J-T. The cutoff and big blind called. The flop was A-J-T with two hearts. The big blind checked, I bet 1,200 and both called. This is a pretty good flop for my hand, but I’m feeling extremely vulnerable with my two pair. I would not be willing to stack off with my hand in this spot as both of my opponents have shown an unwillingness to put in much action without a pretty good hand. Also, this flop should smash my opening range, and anybody willing to go to war with a mid-position preflop raiser on this flop has a pretty good hand. The turn was the 9
. The BB checked, I bet 3,300 and the cutoff folded. After just a few seconds of thought, the big blind grabbed 14,000 in chips and tossed them in, effectively putting me all-in. This guy hadn’t really done much during the first two levels besides getting a decent amount of money in with A-7 on a 7-7-x-x-x board, so I was 100 percent certain I was beat. My hand doesn’t really amount to much at this point, so I folded pretty much immediately (though I did take a little time to feel sorry for myself). I wonder what would have happened if I had just checked the turn to see what the last guy would have done. It’s not really the type of flop that people slowplay on, especially against two opponents, so I think I need to bet my pretty strong but vulnerable hand to get value from A-K and A-Q. In fact, the cutoff said that he had A-Q after the hand was over.
About one orbit later, a weak, early-position player limped, I limped with A 6, and the small blind made it 1,350. I should have folded due to my relatively poor implied odds (I only had about 10,000 behind), but the initial limper’s call enticed me in and we took the flop three ways with me in position. The flop came K Q 8. The small blind checked and the early-position limper did the unexpected and jammed for 11,000 into a 4,000 pot. I thought that his range included lots of different flush draws and virtually no really strong value hands (maybe something like K-J that doesn’t want to see a turn card). I also thought that the SB was likely to have a hand like 99-JJ that is going to fold quite often. Since I think I smash the first limper’s range, and I’m really indifferent to what the small blind does (unless he was playing A-K, A-A, or a set trickily), I called. The small blind unfortunately called behind me and I was in tons of trouble because small blind had A-K and the limper had 8-8!! I couldn’t believe it when he turned that hand over. I bricked out and my main event was over.
It’s always a depressing day when you bust out of the main event, but I had an extremely efficient and profitable WSOP this year. I played nine events for a total of $22,000 in buy-ins. I cashed twice for $170,212. That’s $148,212 in profit, not bad for a month’s work. ♠
Gavin Griffin was the first poker player to capture a World Series of Poker, European Poker Tour and World Poker Tour title and has amassed nearly $5 million in lifetime tournament winnings. Griffin is sponsored by HeroPoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @NHGG