I'll start by telling you how this one ended: KK
The Scene: Sunday night.
So we're at the final table of a the $150 buy-in Showme Showdown -- the first
ever monthly No Limit Hold'em tournament at Ameristar in St. Louis. The format
was a freezeout -- no re-buys. The field was limited to 100 players at 10
tables (buy-ins sold out two weeks ago, on the second registration day), and
the last man left at each of the 10 tables made the final table. So basically,
I had to win a 10-player tournament to make the final table and be
in-the-money.
1st place pays $5000 and a seat at the yearly tournament of champions at the
2nd: $2500
3rd: $1500
4th: $1000
5th: $750
6th - 10th: $250
The Hand
It's the second round around the table. We all started with $1000 in chips. The
blinds are $5 and $10, and I'm dealt KK in 8th position, second from the dealer
button.
Now I had decided on playing tight early in the game as I should, and did so
for the first 10 hands. On the first hand of the final table, I threw away J-10
offsuit from 8th position (where I started) rather than cold call a small (to
$20) early position raise. A few hands later, I also threw away A-J offsuit
under the gun.
I had played two hands thus far -- 8-7 offsuit from the small blind (calling
the big blind with no other callers) which I checked and folded when the flop
missed, and K-J offsuit from one off the button (the previous hand) with no
prior callers. I raised to $30 on that hand, got a caller (the button), and
took the hand with a $100 bluff bet on
Anyway, back to the hand in question.
In third position, the player opened the pre-flop betting by raising to $35,
and got a caller in front of me. This is perfect. I've got a hand and there's
already money in the pot. Now, how do I play it?
Do I call the raise hoping to trap them for bigger money later in the hand? Do
I raise big and try to take the hand right there? Or do I raise somewhere in
between hoping that maybe I get re-raised so that I can move all-in on them?
I opted for the latter. I re-raised to $100.
The Problem
Two seats behind me and with a slightly larger stack, the player on the button
-- a regular $20/$40 limit player in a Michigan sweatshirt who, from what I've
heard, thinks he's really good at this game -- re-raised to $300. The two
players in front of me folded, but now I'm in a bind. I got what I wanted --
sort of.
Here's the problem: "The third raise is 99.5% pure Aces."
Not four hours earlier, I was flipping through T.J. Cloutier's book on No Limit
Hold'em when I came across that line again. A little over a month ago, James
McManus had enlightened me the first time when he referenced that line in Positively
Fifth Street.
Well that was the third raise, so it's pretty easy to throw away my Kings, call
it a $100 loss, and wait for another opportunity, right?
Maybe.
Earlier, on the second hand of the final table, I saw the original raiser raise
under the gun pre-flop with Q-10 offsuit. The guy who called him (the same guy
who called the raise this time) called with Q-10 offsuit on that same hand.
So if the guy is willing to raise with a bad hand, does his raise on this hand really
count as the first raise? If not, then is the $300 raise the second raise or
the third?
Oh, and then there's the other dumb way to look at it: If I had just called the
first raise with my Kings as I had contemplated doing earlier, then Michigan
dude's raise would only have been the second raise, right?
The Decision
As if you couldn't tell, I really wanted to play this hand. I had also kind of
decided on re-raising all in when I raised to $100 the first time.
The upshot is that if I re-raise all in and he doesn't have AA and folds, I'll
take his $300 and the $85 in dead money on the table, have about $1500 in chips
and be in comfortable shape. If he calls, has QQ or worse and my hand draws
out, I'll double up. If that happens, then I can pretty much blind my way into
5th place and the $750 minimum cash prize, as the other players knock each
other out.
The final consideration is also related to the fact that 6th through 10th place
all pay the same. If I don't make a move now, I could possibly find
myself treading water for the next several rounds and get broken in 6th or 7th
place, in which case it wouldn't matter if I get broken now or then.
The Outcome
I should have saved my chips for later.
For one thing, I'm a better player than at least half of those guys, and could
have beaten them down the road. For another,
