Heads Up with Greg Raymer

Greg Raymer, the 2004 World Series of Poker champion, came to the final table of the 2009 WSOP $40,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em event fourth in chips. At the end of the day, he had finished third, for $775,000. Before the start of the final table, Raymer sat down with Card Player TV to discuss a turning point in the tournament.

Kristy Arnett: How did you build your stack?

Greg Raymer: The big pot was against Steve Zolotow. It was not too straightforward, the way that I played that hand.

KA: Tell me about it.

GR: Sure. There’s basically one guy at my table whom I had no prior knowledge of before the day started. His name is Neil Chriss. In this pot, he raised to 35,000. I’m sitting right behind him with A-K, and I flat-call, partly because if someone decides to reraise behind me, I might choose to come over the top, depending upon the situation. And if no one reraises, that’s fine. If I miss my hand, I’m out 35,000 and I fold. If I hit my hand, probably no one would give me credit for that pair, with that kicker.

KA: Were there players behind you who would go for a squeeze, thinking you might be just calling his raise weak, in position?

GR: Absolutely. There are a couple of younger guys — Internet players — and a squeeze is a great play. Even if you know that the other guys know that you are making a squeeze play, they also know that you might have been dealt a big hand this time. You want to look like you are squeezing when you pick up two aces. There was definitely a couple of guys who might have squeezed, but it’s not like it’s some disaster [if they don’t]. I mean, if you have aces and you slow-play [by just calling a raise in position preflop], and you end up in a five-way pot, that can really be horrible, because there’s no flop that you can just easily say, “OK, I fold.” I mean, yeah, if it’s bet, raise, all in, you can fold if you’re unimproved, but if it’s just one guy betting, no matter how ugly the flop looks, you can’t just easily say, “OK, this is a clear fold.” You still might have the best hand at this point. Whereas, if you have A-K and someone bets, no matter what the flop is, you can just go with the hand and say, “OK, I didn’t define my hand; I might lose some chips, let’s go.” Or, you can let go of the hand real easily in that spot.

What happened in this case is that Steve Zolotow raised 100,000 more from the blind, just under a pot-size raise, a very standard reraise amount. The player to my right clearly was not thrilled with this. It was very obvious that he wasn’t looking for that. He did not possibly have two aces or two kings. He definitely had a medium-strength hand. He eventually called, and then I went all in for about 700,000 more.

I knew that Steve had a real hand. There’s no way that he’s messing around. He’s not squeezing with suited connectors or anything like that, but I’m also pretty sure that he might reraise there with some hands like nines, tens, or jacks that he will now surely fold to my reraise. If I run into aces, of course, I’m completely screwed, but anything else, I’m 30 percent equity or better. It just didn’t feel to me that Steve had aces.

KA: What was his stack, compared to yours?

GR: I probably had 1.6 million in chips at the start of this hand. Steve probably had 800,000.

KA: OK, so you knew that you would have some leeway in case you did lose the pot.

GR: If I lost the pot, I would still have an above-average stack. I would have 800,000 when the average player had 600,000, but that wasn’t a big part of my thinking. When I play tournaments, my mindset is really more like a cash-game mindset. In other words, I’m trying to win chips and avoid losing chips simultaneously, just like you would in a cash game. So, even if this would have been all in for me, if I had slightly less than Steve, the play had to be correct either way. If it’s the right play, it’s the right play for those reasons, not because I’ll still be alive in the tournament.

Eventually, he did call [with pocket queens], and it was a good call because of all the dead money. I was lucky to catch a king on the turn.