Too Chicken or Just Conservative? You be the Judge

Now that the World Series of Poker is over and the tournament schedule is a little lighter for me, I'm feeling rejuvenated and ready to get back into top form. I got married on Aug. 19, so this would be the first bit of poker I'd be playing as a married man.



I was really looking forward to the World Poker Tour event at the Bike in this, the fourth season of the WPT. In past years, I've had zero success in this particular event, and I wanted to make sure that I started well and made a good run in the tournament this year.



At my first table, I didn't really recognize anybody, which is generally a good sign. With many of the players being novices, I'd made a conscious decision to proceed cautiously early and look to "chop away" at my inexperienced opponents.



After a couple of laps around the table, I opened a pot from middle position with the A K, making it $150 to go. A player whom I hadn't seen play a hand up to this point called me from late position and the two of us took the flop heads up.



The flop came A-K-8 rainbow, giving me top two pair, so I fired out a bet of $250. My opponent called, and I planned on value-betting the hand through, feeling that he had A-Q or something like that.



The turn card was a queen and I upped my bet to $700. At that point, my opponent raised to $1,700. Now it seemed even more likely to me that he'd made aces and queens. The only clue I had to go on was that he had played no hands up to this point. So, I figured he must have a legitimate hand here, something like A-Q or A-J.



However, when he raised me, the threat of him having pocket eights or even J-10 seemed to be reasonable. Now, my instincts were telling me that I had the best hand with my two pair, but the cautious part of my brain was telling me that it was too early to gamble in such a marginal situation.



Don't get me wrong, I wasn't considering folding here! In fact, all I was really thinking about was whether I should play carefully and call or get aggressive and make a reraise.



After giving it some thought, I felt that I didn't have enough information on my opponent to make any risky plays against him. If I had him beat, I'd be happy to just let him bet the hand for me. So, I called.



The river brought a blank and I checked, hoping to collect bullets and call a nice-sized bet on the river from my opponent.



He bet out only $1,500, though, and I quickly called. He turned over the A 8 and I immediately felt like I may have let an opportunity slip away.



So, did I play the hand like a chicken or was I being justly conservative? What do you think? In hindsight, we know that I likely would have won more had I played the hand more aggressively, but we also have to consider the fact that I had no idea what I was up against.



Other than the fact that my opponent was bearded, and was wearing prescription glasses, blue jeans, and a white poker T-shirt, I'd seen nothing at that point that could help me make a more informed decision. That's simply one of the obstacles we face these days with the fields growing larger and larger each tournament.



There were other factors, too, that had me leaning toward the conservative route. Firstly, I came into the tournament with a fresh attitude and wanted to make sure I avoided any unnecessary risks. Secondly, my table was full of novice players, so I believed I could find even better opportunities to get my chips in.



After all, why should I risk going broke without the nuts when my starting table looked so promising? It seemed that the best approach was to avoid marginal situations like this one and concentrate on chopping away at the small pots, building my stack slowly and steadily.



Had I reraised on the turn and gone broke on the hand, I would have felt very foolish about the decision. The best poker coach I've ever had, my wife, Lori, always states our motto so eloquently: "Don't do anything stupid!"



That simple phrase, as simple and as obvious as it sounds, has very deep meaning for me. Since she shared those words of wisdom with me a while back, I view situations like these differently than I did when I was trying to improve my game when I was in my mid-20s. If it feels like a stupid play, it probably is!



The struggle we face, though, is that while we want to listen to that sound advice, it's also very important to trust our instincts. In this situation, it appears that I made the wrong play. Oh well, I'm far from perfect. The result clearly indicates that I made the wrong play, but as I've already explained, there was sound reasoning behind my caution.



Of course, that didn't stop all of my buddies from poking fun at me, with cracks like, "Oh, so now that you are married, you are taking the conservative approach, huh?" Yeah, yeah – whatever, guys!

Read Daniel's blog at www.fullcontactpoker.com.