The Hand
This week’s hand goes back to this summer when I was out in Las Vegas for the WSOP. I decided to take one last shot at winning a seat in the main event and entered into a $1,000 satellite. There were about 325 players which amounted to 32 seats in the main event. The 33rd place received the remaining odd cash.
I was DEEP in the event. We were down to 37 players and you could feel the tension in the air. I was becoming very short chipped and didn’t believe I could coast in. I was going to have to find a hand I liked and go. I had approximately 30,000 in chips, the blinds were 2000/4000 and I believe the antes were 500. The last two rounds the big stack to my right raised all-in and took the blinds and antes.
Anyway, it was my BB again and this time I picked up A/Kh. All folded to a mid-position player who made a min-raise to 8000. All folded to the button (big stack) who again went all-in. It was up to me. It is now or never. What would you do?
Winner: Robert F., Niles, Ohio
If I felt that I could not just coast to victory in this spot and if I felt like if I had a great chance of winning the seat by doubling up, then I would definitely take my chances with such a strong hand here. You did have the mid-position player to worry about but if the mid-position player saw you standing up to the table bully, then he may get out of the way and hope you bust out.
The big stack of course can have any two cards. He’s just using his big stack to put max pressure on every other player and either collect the blinds and antes to build his stack ,or get lucky and bust enough people to win a seat. With that in mind, I would just go for it and hope he has something like a weak Ace or complete junk.
If AK holds then you’d be in a much better position to win. You would have to go all in, as you said you couldn’t coast the rest of the way and the big stack was being the bully. This also should knock out the mid position player as he wont call 2 all ins near the bubble.
Robin’s Response:
Okay Robert, I do push all-in, mid-position folds immediately and “big stack” calls immediately and flips over A/Q and I couldn’t ask for a better scenario.
The flop is 3/6/8, mixed suits. The turn is a 10 and the river is where I drown…it’s the QUEEN!!!! Its 4am and it was one long, sick walk back to my room.
