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 left in an international tournament. You are in the money and with a stack of 645,000, you are currently in seventh place overall with the average stack being about 867,000. The blinds are 12,000-24,000 with a 4,000 ante, giving you 26 big blinds to work with.
It folds around to you in the small blind and you look down at Q
8
. You complete and the big blind, who is one of the chip leaders, checks behind with a stack of 1,423,000.
The flop comes down AQ9
and you lead for 30,000. Your opponent calls and the turn is the 2
. This time you bet 75,000 and once again, your opponent calls.
The river is the Q, giving you trips. You have 512,000 remaining.
The Questions
Do you check or bet? If betting, how much? How disguised is your hand right now? Given your opponent’s line, what hands are in his range? If checking, what is your plan if your opponent bets? What worse hands will call a value bet? What better hands, if any, can you get to fold?
What Actually Happened
At the WPT Amsterdam main event, Joe Van Den Bijgaart opted to check his trip queens on a board reading AQ92Q.
His opponent, Andjelko Andrejevic, decided to bet 190,000. Van Den Bijgaart called immediately and tabled his hand. Andrejevic could only show J-10 for a busted double-gutted straight draw.
Despite winning the pot, Van Den Bijgaart could only muster a seventh-place finish, good for $38,256. Andrejevic shook off the hand and rebounded to win the tournament, his first WPT title and the $228,000 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.
