How Would You Play This Hand – Full Tilt Poker NLHE, $9500 Guarantee
Full Tilt Poker runs a daily $24+2 “Knockout” tournament at 3:00pm EST. You receive 2000 starting
chips and the blind levels increase every 10 minutes. This is a fun format because you receive $4 for every player you knockout of the tournament which makes the play a bit looser especially when a player is all-in. Today’s tournament started with 587 entrants for an $11,740 prize pool. The 1st place winner received $2,935, 2nd place took home $1819 and the 3rd place finisher won $1,320.
My approach when I play low buy-in tournaments is to try and see a lot of flops with drawing hands giving myself a shot at doubling my starting stack before the first break. I don’t mind risking a few chips in the early levels of a double-stack tournament to try and get lucky.
You can expect to come across several bad players in low buy-in tournaments. They’re unable to fold over cards or a draw after the flop even if it costs them their entire stack. The first hour of a tournament is the best time to try and profit from their mistakes.
Here are the starting stacks going into this hand:
BTN: 6,405
SB: 4,354
BB: 2,820
UTG: 5,168
Hero (UTG+1): 2,325
UTG+2: 7,985
MP1: 7,355
MP2: 8,897
CO: 10,149
With the blinds at 40/80, I pick up Q♣-J♣ in early position just before our first break of the tournament.
How would you play this hand?
There are two big stacks sitting in late position. Q-J suited is a hand I like to see flops with therefore, I limped from early position. You could make a case for raising here. But, I don’t want to get pushed off the hand with a re-raise from one of the big stacks.
The biggest stack at the table makes a 4x pre-flop raise and the action folds around to me. I read this as a muscle play from a big stack in late position. Everyone else folds and I cold call. We go to the flop heads up.
The flop comes: 7♥-J♠-9♦ (pot is 840)
This is a very good flop for my hand. I’ve flopped top pair with a good kicker. There are really only a couple of hands I need to worry about (K-J/A-J). He could also have A-A/K-K/Q-Q/J-J which all have me crushed. But, I’m willing to gamble here and try to double up before the first break. I check with the intention of raising his continuation bet.
He bets 775 and I shove all-in. The reason I shoved is he used up most of his time trying to figure out whether to bet or not. I sensed this as weakness. He finally obliged making his continuation bet and I made him commit another 1190 chips to continue with the hand. He decided to call off an additional 1190 chips into the 1615 pot and the pot is now 4770.
Turn brings: Q♥
My hand improves on the turn giving me top two pair.
The River is: 10♠
What do you think he had?
Results: 4,770 Pot
Hero showed Q♣-J♣ (two pair, Queens and Jacks) and LOST (-2,325 NET)
CO showed A♠-K♥ (a straight, Ace high) and WON 4,770 (+2,445 NET)
I had a pretty big lead after the flop then the turn card almost sealed it for me. But the river gave him a miracle straight, knocking me out of the tournament.
I went with my read and got unlucky. I was actually surprised to see him flip A-K. I didn’t expect him to have such a premium hand in that spot. Sometimes, big stack raises in late position can be deceiving. You expect big stacks to make plays in those spots with marginal holdings so when you see a “real” hand it can come as a surprise. That being said he had nothing after the flop, just Ace-high. But, he got himself committed to the pot with the continuation bet. You can look back and say I should’ve shoved on the flop instead of check/raising. But, if you think you’re ahead in the hand, why not try to extract the maximum amount of chips from your opponent?
I went broke with just top pair on the flop. But as I said earlier, I like to gamble early in tournaments to try and build a stack I can go deep with.
Good luck at the tables!
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