Sticking With Your Read

Is poker all about math? Is poker all about feel? Position? Your cards? Your opponent?

I could go on and on.....

I wanted to talk a little about feel. I think I'm more of a feel player than a math player(I'm not saying this is the better way to be). I will review a hand from the Full Tilt 50-50 tournament I managed to squeak my way through. I'll try to set-up this hand just a little:

At the moment, I have never used PokerTracker. I'm not apposed to it. Actually, I plan to use it in the future when I plan to give online poker a legitimate run. But I have no stats on the "villain" in this hand. What I can tell you, is that this hand is played early at the final table. I don't have much prior history with him/her. I start this hand 4th in chips.

A EP/MP player min-raises. I'm in the small blind. First off, with the antes and blinds in there.. when I'm in the BB, I'm calling a min-raise with almost everything. But this hand I'm in the SB, so it makes it a little tougher. I'm not saying this is a proper call or not out of position. I am getting 3-1 to call. Can't imagine letting this guy get away with this lol. My Jc9c is more than good enough for me. I call.

Flop comes down 2c Th Qs.

I could choose to bet here. I flopped an open-ended straight draw. He only has 127k left. I don't feel like leading out and get reraised all-in. But if I check-shove here, he pretty much has to call with anything with the odds he'd be getting. I decide to check. He checks behind. With the check behind, it seems very weak or very strong. You have to take into account that we're at a final table with some nice paydays for a $55 buy-in. If this were the beginning or middle of the tournament, he could easily fire a c-bet here. But a c-bet would be committing a lot of chips into this pot with nothing. I'm not saying a c-bet would be totally bad, but it takes a lot to pull that trigger at this stage of the tournament. At this point I'm putting him on AK/AJ.. or maybe 77, 88, or 99.

Turn is the 9s. Not a bad card at all. Unless of course he had that 99 I was talking about. I think he c-bets KJ on the flop and don't think he raises preflop with J8 or 78. So a straight is out of the question. I decide to fire a smallish bet here. 40k into a 73,500 pot. And he decides to call. Now I'm almost banking on AK-AJ. If he had a set, 2 pair, etc. I think he pushes here. The board is getting pretty draw heavy.

The river is the 3c. A basic air ball. I elect to check. I think I have him here. But I'm also not too crazy about my 1 pair of 9's. Then.. he ships it! 85,900! Whoaa WTF?! I basically instacalled.

Let's try to make sense of anything other than a bluff? Does he really have the balls to shove the river for value with A-10, A-9? Unlikely. With the stacks in this hand, it just seemed to me that he would push any hand on the turn that he wanted to make money with. And I basically made up my mind on this when he called the turn bet. I could have still folded here and have 170k. I could have called and been wrong and have 84,872. Or.. I could called and been right and have over 400k and be the chipleader of the tourney with 8 players left. When I analyze the hand out loud, the call seems a little easier, but when you're sitting at the final table of a 950+ player tourney, and you have to call a large bet on the river with 3rd pair, decent kicker.. it's not a spot I like to be in. Well I STUCK WITH MY READ, and called. He showed A-J for Ace high. Nice.

Not only am I the current chipleader, but I'm filled with confidence. Which is another positive side to making a good call. A few players wrote things in the chat box, like "Wow, good call." & things of that sort. Which blew my head up even more.

Long story short, I went on to win the tournament. A few times in short-handed play, I raised with small/mid pairs and then folded to a shove because I didn't want a flip(this may have not have mathmatically been the correct play). I just wanted a better spot. I ended up getting fortunate to be on the good side of some great flops/boards. And took down 1st place. As your teacher used to tell you in class, stick with your first instinct(usually).

Till next time, good luck!!

******************** # 444 ***********************

FullTiltPoker Game #9725386425: The Fifty-Fifty (72907090), Table 71 - 6000/12000 Ante 1500 - No Limit Hold'em - 3:33:27 ET - 2008/12/28

Seat 1: spide11 (354,015)
Seat 2: Matt J Bryant (234,772)
Seat 3: MONGOJONGO (155,663)
Seat 4: Root9 (178,195)
Seat 5: kidrael (134,149)
Seat 6: DeuceCourt (151,400)
Seat 7: martand (183,763)
Seat 8: netao (247,928)
Seat 9: 1whoLiesBest (268,115)
spide11 antes 1,500
Matt J Bryant antes 1,500
MONGOJONGO antes 1,500
Root9 antes 1,500
kidrael antes 1,500
DeuceCourt antes 1,500
martand antes 1,500
netao antes 1,500
1whoLiesBest antes 1,500
Matt J Bryant posts the small blind of 6,000
MONGOJONGO posts the big blind of 12,000
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Matt J Bryant [9c Jc]
Root9 folds
kidrael folds
DeuceCourt has 15 seconds left to act
DeuceCourt raises to 24,000
martand folds
netao folds
1whoLiesBest folds
spide11 folds
Matt J Bryant calls 18,000
MONGOJONGO folds
*** FLOP *** [2c Th Qs]
Matt J Bryant checks
DeuceCourt checks
*** TURN *** [2c Th Qs] [9s]
Matt J Bryant bets 40,000
DeuceCourt calls 40,000
*** RIVER *** [2c Th Qs 9s] [3c]
Matt J Bryant checks
DeuceCourt bets 85,900, and is all in
Matt J Bryant calls 85,900
*** SHOW DOWN ***
DeuceCourt shows [Ac Js] Ace Queen high
Matt J Bryant shows [9c Jc] a pair of Nines
Matt J Bryant wins the pot (325,300) with a pair of Nines
*** SUMMARY ***
Duration 57s
Total pot 325,300 Rake 0
Board: [2c Th Qs 9s 3c]
Seat 1: spide11 (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: Matt J Bryant (small blind) showed [9c Jc] and won (325,300) with a pair of Nines
Seat 3: MONGOJONGO (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 4: Root9 folded before the Flop
Seat 5: kidrael folded before the Flop
Seat 6: DeuceCourt showed [Ac Js] and lost with Ace Queen high
Seat 7: martand folded before the Flop
Seat 8: netao folded before the Flop
Seat 9: 1whoLiesBest folded before the Flop