The Steinhorn Stare

This past weekend, I played in the $5000 World Poker Tour main event in Reno (the World Poker Challenge). While I outlasted two-thirds of the field, I unfortunately got myself trapped in a hand and lost my larger-than-average $30,000 stack just a half-hour before the end of the first day.

But, I’ll save that bust-out hand for another post; this post is about a hand I played earlier in the day, where I put my tournament life on line with a really tough “thin value” call.

I’m getting to the point where I truly believe I can compete with the best players in the world, and this hand reinforces that belief. While, in retrospect, the read I made on my opponent wasn’t all that amazing, I think the fact that I had the confidence to act on it was. I couldn’t have made this play a year ago…

It was the fourth round of the tournament, blinds at $100/200 with a $25 ante. I’m in the big blind with just over $12,000, a bit smaller than average at this point. Under-the-gun, a relatively loose, but smart and aggressive player enters for a raise to $675. This player had been running over the table much of the day, but had recently lost a big pot, was near all-in, and had just built his stack back up to $8,000.

Folded around to me, and I look down at Ac 2s. Normally, I throw this hand away, but with $1225 in the pot, and only $475 more to me, I’m getting over 2.5:1 on the call, and I know that if I hit my hand, I can likely get my opponent to pay me off. I call.

Flop comes: 8c 6c 4c

I decide that if I bet, my aggressive opponent will likely come over the top of me with a raise, and put me to the test. I won’t have the odds to call his raise, and with the nut flush draw and the overcard ace, I’m not ready to let go of this hand yet. The check-raise seems a lot more effective; if my opponent calls, I still have either 9 or 12 outs, and the likelihood of his folding provides the extra equity I need to make this play. So I check. My opponent checks behind me. Not the outcome I expected, but I don’t think the free card is going to hurt me here.

Turn comes: 8h

I decide that if my opponent had any piece of that flop (any pair, any overpair, or any big club) he would have bet the flop. Even with a flopped flush, he likely has to bet, as it wouldn’t be the nut flush, and he knows I could easily have the Ac. I decide to take a stab at it, and bet a little less than half the pot — $800. My opponent hesitates just a second, and raises to $2500. There’s exactly $5000 in the pot, and it’s $1700 more to me (just under 3:1 to make the call). I have 9 outs to the nut flush, but my opponent may very well have one or two of those outs in his hand, and if he filled up, I’m drawing dead.

Against a weaker opponent, I probably lay this down right here, but just as I reasoned that my opponent probably didn’t have a hand, it’s very likely that he reasoned that I knew he didn’t have a hand, and therefore I didn’t need much of a hand to make that bet. I think the extra equity of my ace-high being good (or an ace on the river giving me the best hand) gives me the odds to call, so I do.

River comes: 4d

Interesting card. I missed my flush, but with two pair on-board, I no longer have to worry about losing to an ace with a bigger kicker, so if my opponent has been betting with just an ace, I’ve just caught up. My first reaction is that with a bet I can likely take the pot if my opponent only has ace-high. But, I know that he’s smart enough to know that the 4 was unlikely to improve my hand, and unless I had a monster hand, it’s unlikely I’d have check-called the whole way and then bet out the river. I decide that I’ll only get called if I’m beat, so I check. My opponent immediately bets his last $4825 into the pot.

My first thought is that if I fold, I have about $9000 left, which is still plenty at this point, as the average stack is about $15,000 and I’m only paying $550 per round in blinds/antes. And if I call and lose, I’m down to about $4000, putting me in a bad spot. I can’t make a speculation call here unless I’m fairly certain I can win (or at least split) the pot.

I go over the hand in my head again, and I decide that my opponent’s betting just wasn’t consistent with any made hand. Assigning probabilities, I decide that I have a 50% chance of splitting the pot with the ace, 25% chance of losing the pot if I my opponent is holding a hand inconsistent with his betting, and 25% chance of winning the pot if my opponent was on a bluff with less than ace-high. Getting better than 2:1 on my money, it appears to be a clear call.

So, I make the call with ace-high. My opponent hesitates, says “nice call,” and turns over KQo for king-high. I drag the $16,000 pot, and my opponent heads home.

I think this hand demonstrates a major step up in my game. Again, I don’t think the read here was amazing; a lot of players could have made that same read. The question is how many of them would have trusted the read enough to put the chips in the pot and put their tournament life on the line with ace-high? A year ago, I don’t think I could have…

My buddy Ben had just busted from the event, and witnessed the hand as it unfolded…perhaps now he’ll think twice before trying to bluff me in our next home game…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 28th, 2006 at 9:14 am and is filed under Poker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.