Destined to Go Broke?

I was playing recently in a $320 nightly tournament on Pokerstars. From a starting field of 450 players, we were down to 60, and the top 45 would be in the money. I had an average stack of about 18,000. Normally, I'd feel pretty secure that I would at least make the money, but my table draw was really unfortunate, as I was seventh in chips at my table. With so many players who could bust me, I knew I had to tread carefully, but at the same time, I believed I needed to continue playing with first place as my main goal.

With blinds of 300-600, the under-the-gun player made it 1,500. Everyone folded to me in the cutoff, with J-J. I wanted to find out right away just how strong he was, so I made it 4,200 to go. After some hesitation, the button, who had me covered, called. The blinds and the under-the-gun player folded, so I was going to the flop heads up and out of position.

Before going any further, I'll tell you that my immediate instinct was that I was up against pocket aces. This was not a case of seeing monsters under the bed; it was simply his most likely hand. If this were some $11 tournament with 3,000 players, it might have been different. But with a buy-in of $320 on a weeknight, this tournament usually attracted a very tough field of 400-500 players. There was very little dead money, and very few players who would cold-call a reraise preflop this late in the tournament without a huge hand. I wasn't completely sure how to proceed, but checking and folding definitely crossed my mind.

In general, I usually have a pretty good idea ahead of time of how I'm going to proceed based on the texture of the flop. For example, if the flop had a jack, I probably would make a small lead bet. If it came with an ace, I probably would check-fold. But when the flop came A-J-3 rainbow, bringing both the ace and the jack, it was one of those rare times that I felt truly unprepared. The flop was there, and I really wasn't sure what to do.

After some thought, I realized that if he had pocket aces, my goal was simply to avoid going broke. If he had anything other than aces, I probably wasn't going to make any decent money on the hand anyway, so there was no reason to get overly aggressive. I decided to check. After two seconds, my opponent checked behind me.

Oh well, that didn't accomplish much. Upon further thought, I realized that he probably would check there regardless of his hand. Whether he had A-A, K-K, or A-K, checking that flop made sense for him. Whether or not it was possible, I found myself wishing I could have gotten some more information.

The turn paired the 3. I decided to lead out for 1,800, a laughable underbet. He flat-called. Again, I realized that this gave me no real information. With A-A, he's calling so that he can string me along, and with K-K or A-K, he's calling the small bet into the large pot just in case he has me beat. I still had no information, but as strange as it may sound, I was thankful that I had only one-third of my stack in the pot, as I still thought A-A was his most likely holding.

The river was a blank. I considered leading small again, but then decided against it. It wasn't too important to get paid off by a lesser hand. Of greater significance was the possibility that I would get raised and have to consider making a sick laydown. Plus, I figured that if I checked and he had A-A, he probably would bet small just to make sure he got paid off, and I'd be able to survive.

With that in mind, I checked. He immediately went all in. Huh?

So much for all of my careful thinking. I was expecting him to either check behind me with a worse hand or bet small with A-A, and instead, he went all in? I'll admit, it threw me off. Why would he bet so much if he had A-A? Could he really expect me to call? From the way I had played it, he had to figure that my most likely hands were K-K or Q-Q, so why bet so much?

I almost found myself wanting to flip a coin to decide what to do. In the end, whether or not it was the best thing to base my decision on, I decided that it was a forgivable mistake to call with jacks full and lose. I called all in, he showed his pocket aces, and I was eliminated just short of the money.

At first I was a little miffed at myself. I put him on pocket aces the whole way, then convinced myself that he might have something else, and that change of heart cost me the tournament. On the other hand, everyone I've talked to says that it was just a bad-luck flop, and I was destined to go broke in that hand.

Either way, I still thought it was worthwhile to go through the hand and think about what I could have done differently. But in the end, I think that if I try too hard to get away from hands like the second-nut full house - I'll be doing myself more harm than good.

Meanwhile, this hand obviously worked out perfectly for my opponent, but that doesn't mean I like the way he played it. I thought his preflop call of my reraise was pretty transparent. Whether he calls or raises, I'm giving him credit for a pair higher than jacks, so all he's doing by flat-calling is giving me a free chance to outflop him. I think his better play is to reraise preflop, and hope that I have something I can't get away from. Of course, once it came set over set, he seemed like a genius, but I still think the flat-call was a fancy play at a time when the straightforward play made more sense.

I also have mixed feelings about his river bet. Again, it worked out perfectly, but I think that's because I had the only hand with which I would call his all-in bet. If I had Q-Q or K-K, he was simply blowing me out of the pot, instead of betting small and giving me a chance to pay him off for 2,000 or 3,000 in a pot of 14,000. I'm sure he wanted me to misread his bet, to assume that his all-in move meant that he was weaker than he really was, but that still wouldn't have mattered. The only other hand I would even consider calling him with was A-K, and even then, I think I would have leaned toward laying it down.

But in this particular case, I guess none of that matters. When the board comes like that, maybe he was just destined to double up, just as I was destined to go broke.

Matt Lessinger is the author of The Book of Bluffs: How to Bluff and Win at Poker, available everywhere. You can find other articles of his at www.CardPlayer.com.