My 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event

We were about 25 minutes into the World Series of Poker main event, and I had 29,000 of my 30,000 starting stack. With blinds of 50-100, the under-the-gun (UTG) player opened for 325. Two to his left, I called with 8-8. It was then folded to the button, who called. Johnny Chan quickly called from the small blind, and the big blind mucked.

Four-handed, the flop came J-10-8 rainbow. First to act, Chan immediately reached for chips. He took a second or two to determine an amount, then bet 1,200, which was almost the size of the pot. The UTG player folded, and I raised to 3,500. The button folded, so it was back to Chan, who took about 30 seconds to decide what to do. I’m not claiming that I can read him well, but it didn’t feel like he was going to fold. It seemed like he was choosing between calling and raising, or maybe he had decided to raise and was trying to determine how much. Eventually, he reraised to 11,200, and the action was back to me.

I took about two minutes to decide what to do. At this point, I’m going to describe everything that went through my head during that time. I’m not justifying my thoughts or saying whether they were correct or incorrect. For now, I’m just acting as a reporter, trying to recall everything that led to my decision.

My first thoughts were about his preflop call. It literally took less than a second for him to peek at his cards, snap them down, and throw in the call. For someone who is usually a deliberate player, it was a surprisingly fast sequence. He clearly didn’t consider reraising or folding, at all.

Then, the flop came, and it was immediately apparent that he intended to bet. With those thoughts in mind, I just didn’t think it was likely that he had flopped a straight. From what I knew of Chan, he didn’t seem like the type to carelessly splash around with speculative hands, so I felt that with Q-9 or 9-7, he would have at least considered folding preflop, even if they were suited.

Similarly, I felt that on the flop, he would have given some thought to check-raising if he had flopped the nuts, but from the moment the flop hit, he had made up his mind to bet. At any rate, I dismissed the possibility of a straight. I figured that even if he had it, I still had about a 35 percent chance to win the hand, so being wrong wouldn’t be a complete disaster.

So, basically, there were only three other hands that he could logically have: J-J, 10-10, or J-10. Now I had to decide how likely it was that he had J-10, while making sure that I wasn’t falling into the trap of putting him on a hand that I could beat. First, I considered that from a mathematical perspective, he was more likely to have J-10 (nine combinations) than J-J or 10-10 combined (three combinations each).

Then I went back to the preflop call. I couldn’t help but think that with J-J or 10-10, he would have taken at least a split second to consider reraising. Not that reraising would have been the correct play, but usually when you look down and see a decent pocket pair, you take a moment to consider your options.

Then I tried to put myself in his shoes. I was a completely unknown player to him. Would he assume that J-10 was the best hand? I wasn’t sure, but it seemed tough to put me on a straight, having cold-called preflop. A set would have him beat, but he’d be ahead of everything else, so he’d probably think there was a good chance that J-10 was the best hand.

Would he put in that big a reraise with J-10? That was the part I didn’t feel too good about, but at the same time, it was tough to imagine that he’d flat-call with it, either. Both his bet on the flop and his reraise had a feeling of protection to them, as if he felt that he had the best hand, but knew it was vulnerable. If he was really trying to protect his hand, somehow I felt that J-10 made the most sense, since it was the most vulnerable of his possible hands.

Finally, I asked myself, “How would I feel if I moved in, got called, and he knocked me out? Would I be OK with it?” While I certainly wouldn’t be happy about it, I liked my chances well enough that I didn’t want to lay down my hand. I also considered that if this were happening on day two, I’d almost certainly go with my hand, so it shouldn’t be any different because we were at the beginning of day one.

After all of that deliberation, I moved all in. He did not snap-call me, which got my hopes up for a few seconds. Then he muttered, “Set of jacks?” At this point, it was clear that he had a set of tens. I prayed that he would make an insane laydown, but, of course, he didn’t. The turn was a queen, giving me a chance to chop with a 9, but the river was a king, and I was gone.

I have always wondered how so many people could go broke on day one, and here, I had lasted all of about 25 minutes. It’s pretty sad to lose $400 per minute [$10,000 buy-in]. Yet, I felt at peace with my decision and tried not to dwell on it too much. I made my plans to go home and go on with life as usual.

Of course, with each day that goes by, I realize more and more how faulty my thinking was during the hand. The idea that J-10 was more likely mathematically was meaningless, unless I knew that he would play J-J, 10-10, and J-10 exactly the same way. The fact that he didn’t hesitate before calling preflop with 10-10 should not have surprised me. With decades of experience, he doesn’t need any time to realize that calling with 10-10 from the small blind in a multiway pot is the obvious play. After the flop, even if he thought J-10 was the best hand, it’s unlikely that he would have made such an oversized raise with a hand that would get action from only a better one. In short, I made some serious mistakes and paid the price.

Friends reassured me that it was a tough hand, and that anyone could go broke there. I appreciate that they were trying to make me feel better, but deep down, I knew that I had made a bad decision. That’s poker. All pros make wrong decisions several times a day; they just aren’t usually that costly. Now I have to wait another year for a chance at main-event redemption.

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.