Hand 2 Hand Combat -- Dan 'Wretchy' Martin

Craig Tapscott: The PokerStars Sunday rebuy event attracts the very best online players in the game.

Dan “Wretchy” Martin: It is by far one of the sickest tournaments of the week. This one gets over 1,000 players, so it doesn’t hurt to gamble a bit; I might drop a few more hundred in order to build a big stack. I believe that in this specific tournament, I was in for $500. I lost one flip during the rebuy period, and ended up with roughly 8,000 in chips.

CT: Please share your strategy during the rebuy period. Are you a maniac or do you wait for the loose-aggressive players to spew chips to you, or something in between the two?

DM: I just like to pick my spots. If it comes down toward the end of the hour and I have less than 3,000 in chips, I like to gamble it up once or twice in order to try to get a workable stack before adding on. The tournament used to be a maniac-riddled field, and now it’s a bunch of tight players in the rebuy hour.

Villain raises from the cutoff to 38,888. Wretchy calls from the big blind with the J 10.

CT: Let’s set this hand up.

DM: This is the final-table bubble. I was sitting near the top of the chip counts for a lot of the tournament near the late stages.

CT: What are some of the situations you’re looking for to accumulate chips on a final-table bubble?

DM: I’m looking for good spots to three-bet and four-bet preflop. A lot of players deep in this tournament are willing to gamble, so I like to sit back and pick my spots. You can play the tightest game in the $100 rebuy event and win the tournament, because people are willing to spew chips preflop. It’s all about mixing up your game in this tournament, which is why I decided to flat [flat-call] with J-10 suited instead of raise and possibly get shoved on. I can just keep the pot small and play my hand.

CT: Had he been putting a lot of pressure on your blinds previously?

DM: He had raised my blind the last three out of four orbits. In this hand, he had made a small enough raise that I could take a hand like the J 10 to the flop.

Flop: Q J 8 (pot: 93,776)

CT: Is it ever an option here for you to lead out in this spot?

DM: I never lead at pots here. Checking is the play 99 percent of the time with me. Sometimes I elect to flat-call or check-raise, but for the most part, I’m checking the flop when out of position.

Wretchy checks. Villain checks.

CT: What do you make of his check?

DM: His check behind is pretty standard this deep. If he were to bet, I was going to check-raise. That had been the common theme for me to do in this tournament up to this point.

CT: Talk a bit about how to play this stage of the tournament.

DM: Sadly, a lot of play this deep is preflop. Again, tons of players are willing to get their stacks of 30-50 big blinds into the middle and flip for a monster stack and the possibility of winning the tournament.

CT: Why spew chips when you’re that deep?

DM: I think one reason that players are more willing to do this is because of the payout structures. PokerStars changed its structures to pay the top 15 percent. If I’m sitting with anywhere under 20 big blinds at this point of the tournament, I’m looking to raise and call off, or three-bet all in. It allows my stack little fluctuation and I maintain fold equity when the blinds increase. Anytime I have more than 20 or 30 big blinds at this point, I don’t mind calling off the shoves of 20 big blinds and less, because I feel that the strongest part of my game is range reading, and I like to use that to my advantage.

Turn: 5 (pot: 93,776)
Villain bets 48,750.

DM: Villain decided to throw out a bet here, the size of a standard continuation pot. The turn really didn’t affect the board at all. And he could very well have 5-5 in his range. At the same time, he’s going to be betting all of his big hands on the flop, because of my frequency of check-raising flops.
Wretchy calls.

CT: What slows you down here if your intention was to check-raise the flop?

DM: I elect to call instead of raise here for a few reasons. Hands like K-Q, A-Q, Q-J, 5-5, and 8-8 (basically all of the hands that crush me) can play a big pot here. And that’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to control the pot size, so that I can call a river bet if he decides to go on with a river bluff. I can call and not risk too many chips, so it’s just basic pot-control strategy.

River: K (pot: 191,276)

CT: What range of hands do you think he’s putting you on?

DM: It can be safe to assume that I’m calling with a lot of draws here, and maybe even some overcards, like A-10. I would have raised preflop with hands like 8-8+ and A-Q+. I could be calling with K-Q, A-J, K-J, J-10, or 10-9. With that in mind, I choose to check the river card, because it did not improve my hand at all. I still would like to see what kind of bet he wants to put out, if any.

Wretchy checks. Villain bets 101,000.

CT: So far, it’s played out exactly as you expected. What do you make of his bet size?

DM: Yes. He decided to bet an even amount — 101,000. All of his previous bets had ended in other numbers, never in 000.

CT: What’s your instinct on his change-up?

DM: It makes me think he’s uncomfortable with the hand, because all of a sudden, he’s changing his bet-sizing. Also, the king on the river hits a lot of my range, and I think someone would tend to check-call here, even with hands like Q-J and K-Q, as, obviously, hands like 10-9 and A-10 would raise him. I used a little bit of my time bank before deciding to call, figuring that he would be checking behind with hands like Q-X and perhaps even J-X, for showdown value, while bluffing with hands that can’t possibly win the pot outright.

Wretchy calls. Villain reveals the 3 2. Wretchy wins the pot of 393,276.

Dan “Wretchy” Martin, from the state of Oregon, has put together highly impressive results across all of the major online poker sites. He took down the Full Tilt Sunday Brawl on June 1, 2008, for nearly $70,000. He also has a victory in the PokerStars Nightly Hundred Grand event, for $29,000, along with second-place finishes in the $100 rebuy and $300 Saturday tournaments, for a combined $38,000. In February 2009, he had runner-up performances in the Full Tilt $150 rebuy and PokerStars $100 rebuy events, for $53,200 and $48,600, respectively, and then had another second-place effort in the PokerStars $100 rebuy event, for $26,600, in March 2009.