Poker Hand of the Week: 12/4/14You 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 live tournament and are currently in sixth place of six players. With the blinds at 40,000-80,000 with a 10,000 ante, you have a stack of 1,730,000, or just over 21 big blinds. There are two other short stacks at the table with 22 and 24 big blinds, respectively.
The player with 22 big blinds, or 1,770,000, raises from the cutoff to 175,000 and everyone folds to you in the big blind. You look down at 6
5 and decide to defend.
The flop comes down 5
3
2, giving you top pair and a gutshot straight draw. You check and your opponent continues with a bet of 190,000. You have 1,545,000 remaining in your stack and your opponent has you covered by one small blind.
The Questions
Do you call or raise? If raising, how much? Should you wait to raise until you see a safe turn card, or raise now to protect your hand? If you raise and are called, what is your plan for bad turn cards? If calling, what is your plan for the turn?
What Actually Happened
At the 2014 WPT Montreal main event final table, Mukul Pahuja opted to raise all in holding 65 on a flop of 532. His opponent, Guillaume Nolet, made the call with AJ, holding two overs and a flush draw.
According to the Card Player Odds Calculator, Pahuja was a slight underdog at 48.38 percent to win the pot.
The turn and river fell 108, however, and Pahuja doubled up. Nolet was eliminated on the very next hand, earning CAD $90,350. Pahuja went on to finish in third place, banking CAD $186,964.
The eventual winner was Jonathan Jaffe, who picked his first career WPT title and the CAD $429,106 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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