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.
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The Scenario
There are nine players remaining in a big buy-in international tournament and only eight will make the money. With a stack of 596,000, you are in third place overall. The blinds are currently 10,000-20,000 with a 3,000 ante, giving you just over 28 big blind to work with. There are two players with less than 10 big blinds remaining.
The action folds around to you in middle position and you look down at A
A
and raise to 48,000. The chip leader, a very skilled tournament veteran, has been dominating thus far and calls from the big blind with a stack of 1,683,000.
The flop comes down 9
63 and your opponent checks. You check behind and the turn pairs the board with the 9. Your opponent leads into you for 60,000. You have 545,000 remaining in your stack.
The Questions
Do you call, raise or fold? If calling, what is your plan for the river? If raising, how much? Are you raising for value, for protection or for information? Your opponent’s range is very wide at this point in the hand, so do you regret not betting the flop or was keeping the pot small the best play? Assuming he calls a raise and checks the river, would you fire a value bet or check behind?
What Actually Happened
At the 2014 World Series of Poker Asia Pacific High Roller event, Mike Leah bet 60,000 on a board reading 9639 and Phil Hellmuth made the call.
The river was the J and Leah bet 175,000. Hellmuth quickly called with his pocket aces, but Leah showed 109 for a flush to take the pot and increase his chip lead.
A seemingly tilted Hellmuth then called off his stack a short time later with top pair, top kicker, running into Leah’s flopped set to bust on the bubble. Leah went on to win the tournament, banking AUD $600,000 and his first career WSOP bracelet.
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.
