Poker Hand of the Week: 12/11/14You 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
There are three players remaining in a small field, big buy-in event and you have just made the money, guaranteed at least $291,000 from your initial $100,000 buy-in. Second place will pay $436,500 and the winner takes home $727,500.
Of the three remaining players, you are by far the most talented and experienced, but the other two have not yet made any glaring errors. With a stack of 538,000, you are in second place overall. The short stack has 287,000 and the chip leader has the rest with 675,000. The blinds are 4,000-8,000 with a 1,000 ante, giving you 67 big blinds to work with.
The chip leader folds on the button and you look down at K
10
in the small blind. You limp in and the big blind checks behind. The flop is K87 and you lead for 9,000. Your opponent raises big to 45,000 and you make the call.
The turn is the Q
. You check and your opponent moves all in for his last 233,000, which represents a little less than half of your remaining chips.
The Questions
Do you call or fold? If folding, what range of hands do you put your opponent on? How often is your hand good in this spot? Does your skill advantage make you lean towards calling or folding? Would you call knowing that you are good enough to rebound from such a misstep? Or would you fold knowing there are better spots to play with your skill advantage?
What Actually Happened
After thinking things over for about a minute at the WPT St. Kitts Alpha8 tournament, Jason Mercier decided to make the call with his K10 on a board of K87Q.
His opponent, Tony Guglietti, could only show down K3 for top pair with a worse kicker. The river was the 2
, and Gugliettti was eliminated in third place, earning $291,000.
Mercier went on to win the tournament banking $727,500 after defeating Kathy Lehne heads-up for title. Lehne cashed for $436,500.
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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