Are We There Yet?

Blonds are the subject of many jokes in which their allegedly poor thinking processes lead to the punch line. My favorite blond joke concerns two women who get lost while shopping at the mall. They come to a large map of the mall. After staring at it for a few minutes, the brunette points to a red dot with the words YOU ARE HERE written underneath it. The blond thinks for a few seconds, and asks, “How does it know that?” In poker, it is very important to know where you are in a hand, but unfortunately, there is no map to help. You must figure it out on your own. You know what you have, but what does your opponent have? What should your opponent do with what he has? Is there any way to get him to make a mistake?

To illustrate the difficulties involved in knowing where you are, I will use a hand that occurred between Jeff Shulman and Phil Ivey at the 2009 World Series of Poker main-event final table. Jeff was on the button, and raised to about 1.5 million with two nines. Phil was in the big blind, and reraised 8.5 million all in with K-Q offsuit. Jeff folded. If Jeff feels that Phil will do this only with a quality hand, such as a big pair or two high cards, he knows that he is either a small favorite (against hands like A-K or A-Q suited) or a big underdog (against all high pairs). This is a fairly common situation in poker, and when the bet that you have to call is large compared to the current size of the pot, it is clearly correct to fold. Both Jeff and Phil had been playing a solid game up to this point. Jeff didn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t follow the general principle of folding when you are either a little ahead or way behind. He probably felt that there were weaker players, and that there was a good chance he might get better opportunities later, which he did. Based on this, it is hard to fault Jeff’s decision.

There are several other factors that he might have considered, which might have pushed him toward making the call. First of all, there has been a lot of table talk before the hand about Jeff’s declining stack. Jeff then says something about Phil’s rapidly shrinking stack. Ivey responds by telling Jeff to worry about his own chips and his coach, Phil Hellmuth. Given all of this table talk, it seems quite possible to me that either one of them might try to steal a pot to try to build up his stack. Jeff has raised from the button, where steal attempts are quite common. He certainly should consider that given the table talk and his position, Phil might read him as likely to be weak. If that is Phil’s read, he may reraise with any two cards, or at least with any two cards that seem to be better than the hands with which Jeff might try to steal. If Phil assumes that there is a good chance Jeff is stealing and will fold to a reraise, K-Q offsuit is a great hand to reraise with. Not only is it better than some of the semi-legitimate hands Jeff might raise with, like suited connectors, but Jeff might fold some better hands, like an ace with a 10 or lower, and small pairs.

Does this mean that I think Jeff made a terrible play by folding in this particular situation? I certainly think that Jeff’s fold was clearly correct in isolation. He may have even read the situation perfectly. Ivey might reraise only with a big pair or two big cards, in which case folding was the correct decision, unless Jeff could have figured out that Ivey didn’t have the big pair on this particular occasion. Folding as a slight favorite with a lot of money already in the pot is clearly a mistake. It also can be classified as an error, if we accept Sklansky’s concept that it’s an error if you play a hand differently than you would if you knew your opponent’s holecards. But the real point is that you don’t know what your opponent has, or even what his range is. So, it is very hard to know exactly where you are in every hand.

But what if Ivey was thinking along the lines that I suggested above? What if his reraising range was much wider than big pairs and high cards? If he might make this play with 7-6 suited, A-X suited, or a small pair, Jeff’s fold was horrendous. If only Jeff had had a map that said, “You are here.”

Phil is the world’s best poker player right now, and I wouldn’t presume to know what he was thinking when he went all in. I have to admit that my first instinct would have been to call with K-Q and see if there was a flop I liked, a king or queen or straight draw. Likewise, my first instinct would have been to fold with Jeff’s hand. Perhaps if I had been at the table, in Phil’s spot, I might have been brilliant enough to reraise. Perhaps if I had been in Jeff’s spot, I would have been brilliant enough to call. My call would have been based not only on the situation, but on the hope of knocking out the best player at the table, and substantially increasing my chance of winning.

Steve “Zee” Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful games player. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. He can be found at many major tournaments and playing on Full Tilt, as one of its pros. When escaping from poker, he hangs out in his bars on Avenue A — Nice Guy Eddie’s and The Library near Houston, and Doc Holliday’s at 9th Street — in New York City.