Winning Hands: How To Get Denied A Fossil

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When I teach live seminars, we spend the first three hours doing a lecture, take a lunch break, and then spend the afternoon doing live hand labs. In these, I deal to the students, who try to play their best game. At the end of the hand, they show their cards, and I provide feedback and critique.

In 2019, I published FossilMan’s Winning Tournament Strategies, a 42-chapter book covering all of the basic concepts behind being a winning tournament player, as well as many of the more advanced strategies. This book could be compared to the lecture portion of my seminars. I have been working on a second book, however, and thought it should more resemble the live hand labs.

For this book, I will go through several dozen hands I have played, and break down each decision along the way. Although not yet finished, I thought it would be fun to provide excerpts of some of those hands here.

It is early on day 2 of the 2018 Heartland Poker Tour main event at the Ameristar St. Charles. Although it is day 2, we are not yet in the money, but are at a point where about 70% of the remaining field will make the money. The blinds are at 2,000-5,000 with a 5,000 big blind ante, and I am sitting UTG+1 with a well-below average stack of 105,000.

I looked down at A K and raised to 11,000, with only the big blind calling. On the flop of K 10 6 the big blind led for 24,000, and I called. On the 2 turn, he bet again for 40,000, and I called leaving myself only 27,000 behind. The river was the J, and I called off the rest of my stack to his bet, busting to his J 10.

We were fairly deep in this tournament, and would likely be on the money bubble in another hour or so. As such, I was playing on the snug side given my stack size. I had too few chips to risk them all at this stage unless I believed I was the favorite, and not enough chips to play marginal hands, even if they offered me a small edge.

With just over 20 big blinds, most of the hands I don’t fold will feature somebody opening for a raise, followed by me reraising all-in.

This hand is one of the exceptions where I open-raised, starting with such a premium hand. A-K is more than strong enough to risk my entire stack preflop, if it came to that. There is no GTO or basic strategy reason to ever limp with this hand. The only valid reason to do so would be to exploit a player yet to act whom I believe will raise, thus giving me the opportunity to reraise all-in.

I got heads-up with the big blind, who will presumably defend with a wide range of hands, given his stack size and the price he was getting. I caught a very good flop, giving me top pair, top kicker. If he checked, betting would be automatic, and essentially mandatory. The flop is coordinated, with a possible flush draw, and straight draws. More than half the deck will make a flush and/or a straight possible on the turn. It is too dangerous to give a free card here, as some of those hands will fold now, especially the gutshot straight draws, such as Q-9, J-9, 9-8, 9-7, 8-7, and more

However, it didn’t come to that. The first unusual action in this hand is the donkbet (lead) from the big blind. In this case, I do not know the player at all, and have no history to look back on. However, he did not feel strong, that is, his overall body language made me believe he was more likely to be holding a hand where he just wants me to fold. So, I made the call.

There is some merit to raising all-in at this point. If he has a strong draw, such as Q-J or A-Q suited, all the chips are probably going to go into this pot eventually. Might as well do it now while I’m still the favorite. If he has a weaker hand, such as what he actually held, a three-bet all-in will presumably get him to fold, and deny him the opportunity to get lucky on us.

But is what really what we want? If he has a lot of equity, as discussed, he isn’t folding anyway, and all of the chips will go in now or on the turn. If he has very little equity, these are exactly the hands from which we want maximum action. Even though we were getting somewhat close to the bubble, I was still happy to get all my chips into the pot when I was a substantial favorite to win.

In this specific case, I was about a 4:1 favorite to win if it all went in on the flop, and a 9:1 favorite after the turn. If I want to make the money, and especially if I want a significant chance at going extremely deep, and making the big money, I can’t play it safe by folding out players with very little equity.

The turn was the most difficult street for me to play. The flush draw just got there, and he makes another bet, one that effectively commits me to putting all my chips in the middle. At this point, folding would not be a horrible decision. And against many opponents, it would probably be the best decision.

Most players, unless very strong and skillful, or very weak and stupid, would not donkbet this flop and bet this turn without having better than one pair. Much of their range that was behind on the flop just got there with the flush card. I decided he was still weak and called, intending to call again on the river no matter what card it was. If he is capable of bluffing again here, then he is capable of bluffing one last time, for what is now a small amount of chips, no matter the river card.

Happily, I was correct, and he was overplaying middle pair the entire time. Sadly, he did have five outs, and caught one of them on the river to bust me.

There is a silver lining to this story. Typically, when I bust out of a tournament, I take the fossil I have been using as my card protector, write their name, the event and the date on it, sign it, and give it to them. However, upon seeing his hand, I sighed a little and quietly said, “nice hand.” He immediately became very angry, apparently taking this neutral phrase to be an insult.

He started getting very defensive about his play, telling me it was all my own fault for not raising him off the pot on the flop “like I should have.” Instead of asking his name and signing the fossil for him, I just said, “Whatever, have it your way,” and kept that fossil.

While this is a rare occurrence, I do have a rule for these situations. Douchebags don’t get fossils.

Have fun, and play smart! ♠

Greg Raymer is the 2004 World Series of Poker main event champion, winner of numerous major titles, and has more than $7 million in earnings. He is the author of FossilMan’s Winning Tournament Strategies, available from D&B Publishing, Amazon, and other retailers. He is sponsored by Blue Shark Optics, YouStake, and ShareMyPair. To contact Greg please tweet @FossilMan or visit his website.