Confusing Fold With 10-10

In the $5,000 buy-in World Series of Poker six-handed no-limit hold’em event, I had a ton of chips late on day two. We were down to the final 40 players and I had 500,000 in chips. I was in the hunt, and was fired up. Then, I lost a pot of about 460,000 with A-A versus my opponent’s K-Q, and I was back to a short stack and in “running my chips up” mode. There are two ways to run your chips up; one is my standard way, in which I play very patiently and wait for a few good situations to come up, and the second way is to start pushing the envelope with some marginal hands. Ideally, a person doubles up when playing the marginal hands (a bit recklessly), and then picks up a good double-up hand. Of course, a good double-up hand doesn’t come around very often. Playing marginal hands will usually double you up or break you quite quickly.

I had the tough-playing Pete Feldman on my left, and he was causing me some problems, because he wouldn’t let me win a single pot from him. I mean, if I bet, he raised, and if I raised, he reraised, and so on. That’s fine with me, as anyone who never folds to me or surrenders a single pot to me is bound to get nailed pretty good, eventually. But on this day, I never did manage to win a pot against him for the four hours that we were together, including the final one, in which I moved all in with 7-7 on the button and he called me with A-K in the small blind. Feldman’s aggressive play caused me to try to slow-play my hands against him, to allow him to bluff off his money to me. I mean, why reraise a guy and force him to fold when you have a strong hand? Instead, just call him and let him try to bluff you. As Layne Flack likes to say, “Why do the pushing when the donkey is doing the pulling?”

With the blinds at 5,000-10,000, Feldman raised it to 35,000 to go from under the gun, and I looked down at 10-10 in the big blind. The standard play for me here with 180,000 in chips would have been to reraise all in, or at least reraise it to 110,000 to go. But it was Feldman, and I thought that I would slow-play it and let him bluff off his money to me. Thus, I just called. The flop was K-7-2. I checked, Feldman bet 40,000, and I called. The turn was a 6, and we both checked. The river was a 4, and I made a defensive bet of 20,000. Feldman immediately moved me all in for my last 85,000. Wow, I wasn’t expecting a raise here! I mean, if Feldman had a king in his hand, I thought that he would have bet something on the turn. Thus, he had to be bluffing, unless he had K-4 suited or some sort of backdoor hand. But how could he raise my last 85,000 on a bluff? He had to know that I was strong, because I had called a big preflop raise and a decent-sized bet on the flop; thus, he had to have me beat. Also, I had only 85,000 left, so how could he reasonably try to bluff someone with most of his chips already in the middle of the pot?

As I pondered, I kept thinking that Feldman had me beat. I mean, the fact that he moved me all in so quickly on the river told me that he was strong, and it is rare to see a player make a big bluff against someone who has most of his chips already in a pot. Finally, I folded my hand faceup, but I never asked Feldman if he had me beat.

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