When I Was A Donk: Amit Makhija

Amit Makhija

Amit Makhija has been playing poker professionally since 2008 when he started travelling the tournament circuit. Since then, he has racked up $2.6 million in live tournament earnings and millions more playing online.

His biggest score came at the 2008 WPT Legends of Poker main event, where he finished second for $563,320. In October of 2014, he chopped the Card Player Poker Tour main event at the Bicycle Casino for another $135,980 and most recently he finished second in a $25,000 buy-in High Roller event at the Aria for $134,770.

Here, Makhija recalls a mistake he made during a deep run in the WSOP main event, when he finished 47th for $156,293.

I was very deep in the World Series of Poker main event back in 2012. I think I had around 50 or 55 big blinds with about 50 people left in the tournament, which at the time was a decent amount of chips.

Marc-Andre Ladouceur had just been moved to the table and I really didn’t know anything about him other than he was a mostly a mid-stakes cash game player. On one of his first hands at the table, he raised on the button and I called out of the small blind with K-Q offsuit. Normally, I’d three-bet that hand, but without any information I decided to call.

The flop came down K-7-7 rainbow and I checked. He bet, and I went over my options. I decided to check-raise, but in hindsight, that wasn’t the best play considering there aren’t many kings in my range that I’d be willing to play for stacks with and I don’t often have a seven either. I was basically daring him to make a play by inducing him into raising.

He raised and I called, hoping he would bluff it off on the turn or more than likely, shut down most of his bluff attempts because calling shows a lot of strength on my part. The turn was a brick, like a deuce, and it went check, check as expected. But the river was a very ugly ace, basically the only card I don’t want to see. It’s a terrible card because he can pretty comfortably shove any ace for value and not be worried about me ever having a seven.

I checked and he shoved for one and a half times the pot. I picked up a couple of physical tells that told me he wasn’t very strong, but I didn’t know the guy at all and really had no idea how reliable those were. I tanked for a long time, going back and forth several times before I ultimately played it cautiously and folded. He showed J-8 high and I was left with 30 big blinds or so.

I should’ve called, but I’m not too upset with myself for folding. My biggest problem on the hand was choosing to take such a high variance line in the first place, which put me into a tough spot. I really should’ve tried to play a much smaller pot, especially because I was up against a good player that I didn’t know anything about. ♠