Navigating The WSOP Prelims

The World Series of Poker is unique in the wide range of players it attracts. I came to Las Vegas expecting to encounter the absolute best and the absolute worst players I’ll see all year, and the second $1,500 no-limit event I played delivered both. Some of the key hands I played in that tournament illustrate the kinds of adaptations you should make when dealing with such a diverse field.

In the early levels, I had some fun with open limping. The first time I did it was under-the-gun (UTG) with K-Q suited. Blinds were 25-25, and someone behind me raised to 50, which is just never a sign of strength. He got two calls, both also clearly weak, and when the action came back to me I made it 250 and took it down.

At the 25-50 level, I limped in with a pair of fives, and then a player a few seats to my left raised to 200. The button called, as did I.

I checked a flopped set on a Q 9 5 board, the raiser bet 250, the button folded, and now I had a decision. Her sizing — 250 into a pot of 675 — seemed awfully weak, not really indicative of the overpair I wanted her to have. However, if she was weak, a free card wasn’t likely to make her stronger without giving her the lead or making the board extremely scary. And if I was wrong and she did have a big pair, I wanted to get the money in before a scare card fell. So I raised to 900. She folded, but I don’t regret the raise. In all likelihood, I wasn’t going to get much more out of her anyway.

I soon faced a similar decision against a player who’d recently been caught in a big bluff and was pretty sheepish about turning his cards over when he got called. It was a six-way limped pot, and I checked K-J in the big blind.

The flop came K J 6. I potted it for 300 and got two calls. The turn was an offsuit three, I bet 750, the first guy folded, and the second, the one who’d recently been caught bluffing, tanked for a while and then called.

My opponent stared intently at the board as the dealer revealed the river card, which suggests he was on a draw. The river was a six, so if he was drawing, he missed.
Ordinarily I’d check and call with a read like that, since I’d put my opponent on air that couldn’t call a bet but might bluff. However, given how embarrassed he seemed about his last bluff, I didn’t think he’d try it again so soon. And of course the staring-at-the-board tell is hardly a slam dunk, so if there’s any chance he has a hand that can call a bet, I think I’m better off trying to get that call than I am trying to get more value from his now-missed draws. I bet 1,200, and he called and showed K-Q.

About an hour later I moved to a new table that initially was a little tougher than the first. Then it got a lot tougher, because the player on my left busted and was replaced by Phil Ivey.

At this stage of my career, I’m pretty well beyond hero worship, but there’s still something magical about Ivey. He radiates a calm intensity that ought to be the aspiration of every poker player. And as lame as it sounds, some remnant of the poker fanboy I was ten years ago beamed with pride when I put a move on the man.

Blinds were 100-200, I opened to 400 with K 10 in middle position, Ivey called next to act, and the rest folded. He started the hand with less than 5,000, and from many people such a call would be alarming. My understanding is that Ivey likes to take flops, and I suppose he has a well-earned confidence in his postflop game, so I didn’t think he needed a monster to call even for nearly 10 percent of his stack.

The flop came 6 4 3. With a big draw like this, I’d prefer to make the last bet, but I didn’t really want to open shove four times the pot. It occurred to me, though, that if Phil was calling me wide preflop, it was probably with the intention of looking for weakness postflop, so I decided to show him some. I bet 450, he raised to 1100, and then I shipped it on him for 3500 more.

Phil folded instantly and looked completely imperturbed, but the fanboy in my head was doing backflips. I just outplayed Phil Ivey! I knew what I wanted him to do, and I made a plan to make him do it, and it worked! Sure it was a small pot and maybe even a kind of standard spot, but if I had a poker bucket list, putting a move on Phil Ivey sure would have been on it.

By this point I’d run up a well-above-average stack, but when I moved to my next new table, there was a guy three seats to my left with an even bigger stack. While he certainly didn’t play badly, he didn’t prove quite as fearsome as I worried he might be.
At the 300-600 (100 ante) level, he opened to 1,300 in early position, got one call, and then I called with A 9 in my big blind (BB). The J 10 5 flop brought a whole bowl of nothing for me, but when my opponents checked as well, I saw an opportunity. It’s hard to imagine any of them checking top pair or better, and actually even tens probably bet more often than not.

I fired 3,000 at a 7 turn, and to my surprise, they both called. The 2 on the river gave me pause, but I decided they’d probably bet flush draws on the flop as well, so on balance it was probably a good card for me. I pushed 8,000 out there after some thought, and they both folded.

The table got tougher as we neared the end of the day, but I was fortunate to have two of the more straightforward players on my immediate left. This added greatly to the profitability of my late position steals. They actually started catching on and playing back at me a bit — the woman two seats to my left showed a bluff after reraising my last button raise — but I actually thought that would make her less likely to reraise me light again.

The thing about stealing blinds is that, once antes are in play, you lay yourself an amazing price with a minimum raise. If your opponents fold just half of the time, you show an immediate profit. If they call out of the blinds, you get to see a flop in position, which should create further opportunities for you. If I’m confident that my opponents aren’t going to reraise me without a strong hand, then I’ll open any two cards on the button.

This is how I came to be raising 5-2 offsuit to 1,600 at the 400-800 (100) level. This time the small blind called and the woman in the BB folded.

The flop came 8 4 2. I held the 5, which doesn’t matter terribly much but does slightly improve my equity against flush draws. The small blind checked, I bet 2,000, and he raised to 5,500. There’s an outside chance he flopped a set, but in all likelihood this is a bluff. It’s not necessarily a semibluff, either — this is the sort of thing I could see him doing with two random overcards like K-J. I called.

He bet 6,500 on a ten turn, which furthered my read that he either had nothing or a huge hand. Of course it’s a hell of a lot easier to have the former, so I called again.

The river was a nine, and he bet 10,000. I was starting to feel less confident, because this didn’t seem like a guy who did a lot of triple barreling. However, I was getting nearly 3-to-1, he was representing an awfully narrow range, and the most obvious draws missed. I called, and he showed 7-6 It was certainly an unfortunate runout, but I don’t think either of us played it badly.

That left me with just 7,000 chips, which I soon lost to a coinflip. It can be frustrating to play virtually all day and have nothing to show for it at the end, but I was happy with how I’d played. As predicted, I’d encountered a wide variety of opponents, sized each up quickly, and (more or less) adapted correctly. That and a mountain of luck is all it takes to win one of these things. ♠

Andrew Brokos is a professional poker player, writer and coach. He blogs about poker strategy on ThinkingPoker.net and is co-host of the Thinking Poker Podcast. Andrew is also interested in education reform and founded an after-school debate program for urban youth.