Final-Table Takedown: Casey Jarzabek

Casey Jarzabek has career cashes totaling more than $5,000,000 in online tournaments. He started playing online poker when he broke his foot in six places sliding into second base at a charity baseball game and was subsequently bedridden. He made $40,000 during the first two weeks and quickly realized that he could possibly make a living at poker. Casey has final tabled a couple of WSOP Circuit events as well as taking second in a WPT prelim event at Foxwoods. He has now outright won or chopped eight Sunday major poker tournaments.

Jarzabek recently went on a hot streak taking down a Super Tuesday event, and going deep in two PokerStars Sunday Million events for a total of $349,000, all over a ten day period this past January.

Hand No. 1

Key Concepts: Know your opponent; Reading bluffs

Bigdogpckt5s raises to 20,000 from under-the-gun (UTG) plus 3 holding 4 4. Villain raises to 30,000 from the cutoff.

Craig Tapscott: That bet sizing is pretty odd. What went through your mind when he did that?

Casey Jarzabek: When the player in the cutoff with 28 big blinds clicks it back to 30,000 and the action gets back to me, and it’s 10,000 more, this is a pretty obvious call. I have to admit though, there were some alarm bells going off in my head. A click back here in this spot from his stack size is pretty rare. I immediately thought one of two things: he has aces or he misclicked/raised. So I was prepared to proceed with a lot of caution and just give up the hand most times. 

Flop: Q J 2 (pot: 84,000)

CT: Not much here for you.

CJ: No. It is not a great flop for my hand and there are two diamonds, so I just check obviously.

Bigdogpckt5s checks.

CJ: And to my surprise he checks back.

Villain checks.

Turn: J (pot: 84,000)

Bigdogpckt5s bets 30,000.

CT: Why lead out now?

CJ: Well when the turn comes the J, I think to myself that if my hand was good on the flop perhaps he has A-K. Then my hand is still good now. So I decide to lead out as a feeler and hoping to take it down right here in all honesty. But then…

Villain calls.

CT: Does the call continue to set off alarm bells?

CJ: Well the call could mean he has a monster like Q-Q and is in position and wants me to pile the river, or he has moderate showdown value and his hand can improve with a lot of cards. So he just calls.

River: 3 (pot: 144,000)

CJ: When the river comes a seemingly harmless 3 I decide to bet the minimum. So I bet 10,000 into a 144,000 pot.

Bigdogpckt5s bets 10,000.

CT: What kind of strange bet sizing is that?

CJ: This is a little trick I accidently stumbled onto, laying out a min-bet on the river when I misclicked once. Since then I have been doing it quite a bit. When I have hands with limited showdown value and don’t really want to pay the opponents value bet, I min-bet the river. More times than not they don’t raise here because they are confused and just don’t know what to do with this weird bet.

Villain raises to 50,000.

CT: What now?

CJ: It doesn’t please me a whole lot when he raises. I went into the tank here and was struggling with the call or fold decision. When I put some thought into it I felt it was pretty easy to polarize his hand to a complete monster or bluff. I find it really hard to believe he is checking this flop and conservatively playing the turn with broadway and two flush draws on the board with a hand like A-A or K-K. So in my mind he pretty much has Q-Q, J-J, here or a bluff. So I make the call with my 4-4 and…

Bigdogpckt5s calls. Villain reveals 9 8. Bigdogpckt5s wins the pot of 244,000.

CJ: When he rolls over 9 8 I still don’t know if he misclicked preflop or not (laughs). 

CT: You’re obviously a great hand reader. Can you share some of your keys to success that have improved your hand reading skills over the years?

CJ: This may sound cliché, but I think the key to becoming a good hand reader is just playing a ton of hands. I have always had a big gambling streak in me, so at times I have peeled off more flops then I should have. Because of that I have played a lot of postflop hands, and over time my hand reading abilities have continued to get better.

Hand No. 2

Key Concepts: Pot control

Villain raises to 1,200,000 from the button. Bigdogpckt5s calls from the big blind holding 7 4.

CJ: I have a suited three-gapper. One of my favorites. I kind of have a fondness for this hand from a skit that was made with online legends “dipthrong” and “djk123” about this exact hand. So I decide I’m going to defend to the min-raise here even though I am out of position.

Flop: 8 7 5 (pot: 2,880,000)

Bigdogpckt5s checks. Villain bets 1,200,000.

CJ: It seems like a pretty easy call for me here given the fact I defended this hand preflop and flopped second pair.

Bigdogpckt5s calls.

Turn: 7 (pot: 5,280,000)

Bigdogpckt5s checks. Villain bets 3,000,000.

CJ: He bets well under 50 percent of the pot on the flop and now bets well over 50 percent on the turn.

CT: What kind of information does that give you?

CJ: Well to me it suggests two things. He is going hard with his two-barrel bluff and will probably shut down the river if I call here. Or he truly believes he has the best hand and is trying to build the pot to get max value on the river.

Bigdogpckt5s calls.

River: 6 (pot: 11,280,000)

CJ: The river improves my hand… kind of. (Laughs) I go from trips to a straight; however it is the lower end of the straight. So although I have a stronger hand I’m beat by a single card now, a nine obviously. So I…

Bigdogpckt5s checks. Villain bets 3,600,000.

CJ: When he bets 3,600,000 into an 11,000,000 pot I’m obviously at least calling here. I considered shoving. Because with this bet it didn’t scream to me that he had a nine or he would have went for more value given the fact he bet 60 percent or so on turn. And I believe he would bet more than 25 percent on the river if he was truly going for value. However I took the conservative route here and just made the call.

Bigdogpckt5s calls. Villain reveals J 10. Bigdogpckt5s wins the pot of 18,480,000.

CJ: It turns out it didn’t matter as he had the J 10 and couldn’t have called a river raise, but I don’t necessarily think shoving here would be bad, for the record. It would make my hand look bluffy and if he has a hand like A-A or K-K or something with decent showdown value, he might make the call thinking I missed clubs.

CT: You’re game continues to improve as seen by your consistent results. How do you work on your game and what do you contribute the great results year after year?

CJ: Yes definitely my game has evolved and continued to grow over time. I really think being the lead instructor at www.tournamentpokeredge.com has helped me grow my game as much as any member there. Since I am a majority owner of the site, I take a lot of pride and joy in the website. I spend a lot of time in the chat rooms, forums, etcetera. Also I do a lot of strategy podcasts. So the bottom line is I’m always talking poker and getting different perspectives. I also think it is great that I get a lot of perspectives from so called lesser-level poker players. This has helped me a lot with putting myself in the mindset of my opponents. It’s a huge leak in your tournament poker game if you think that your opponent is thinking the same as you all the time. I really just think staying fresh and speaking with the members of my training site has been able to keep me ahead or at least on the curve of a game that is always changing. ♠