Poker Hand of the Week: 9/26/14You Decide What's The Best Play |
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Give us your opinion in the comments section below for your chance at winning a six-month Card Player magazine digital subscription.
Ask any group of poker players how you played your hand and they’ll come up with dozens of different opinions. That’s just the nature of the game.
Each week, Card Player will select a hand from the high-stakes, big buy-in poker world, break it down and show that there’s more than one way to get the job done.
The Scenario
You are at the final table of a major poker tournament and currently sitting in second place out of the four remaining players. Although you have a comfortable stack, there is an overwhelming chip leader who has been bullying the table relentlessly. The other two players are short stacked.
Here’s a look at the remaining prize pool and the current chip counts.
1st – $843,744, 2nd – $500,364, 3rd – $308,067, 4th – $259,012
Hero – 8,825,000, Villain – 24,550,000, Cutoff – 2,100,000, Button – 1,350,000
The cutoff and button both fold to the villain in the small blind who raises to 625,000. You look down at Q
6 and make the call, eager to play a pot with the chip leader in position.
The flop comes down K5
2, giving you the second nut flush draw. Your opponent bets 1,000,000 and you make the call. The turn is the 8 and your opponent bets 1,700,000.
You have 7,175,000 behind and the pot size is currently 5,050,000.
The Questions
Do you call or raise? If raising, how much? Are you raising to protect your hand against board pairing or heart river cards or are you raising to maximize value? If calling, what is your plan for the river? If betting the river, how much? What kinds of hands will your opponent continue to fire on the river if you just call the turn? Does the presence of the two shorter stacks alter your play at all?
What Actually Happened
Facing a 1,700,000 bet holding Q6 on a board reading K528, Darren Elias decided to just call.
The river was the 10 and chip leader Kane Kalas moved all in. Elias snap called with his second nut flush and Kalas could only show down 104 for a worse flush.
Both players eventually found themselves heads-up for the title, but it was Elias who would ultimately emerge as the winner of the WPT Borgata Poker Open, banking the $843,744 first-place prize.
What would you have done and why? Let us know in the comments section below and try not to be results oriented. The best answer will receive a six-month Card Player magazine digital subscription.
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