Poker Hand of the Week: 7/23/14You Decide What's The Best Play |
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Give us your opinion in the comments section below for your chance at winning a six-month Card Player magazine digital subscription.
Ask any group of poker players how you played your hand and they’ll come up with dozens of different opinions. That’s just the nature of the game.
Each week, Card Player will select a hand from the high-stakes, big buy-in poker world, break it down and show that there’s more than one way to get the job done.
The Scenario
There are 30 players remaining in the biggest tournament of the year. You currently sit in sixth place overall with 10,200,000, playing with blinds of 60,000-120,000 with a 15,000 ante, giving you 85 big blinds to work with. There are a few short stacks in the tournament and there is a decent pay jump if you reach the final 27 players.
The action folds around to you in the hijack and you look down at K
10
. You raise to 300,000 and the cutoff, an opponent with 11,140,000, makes the call. The blinds fold and the flop comes down 10
94
.
You are first to act and bet 400,000. Your opponent calls and the turn is the K, giving you two pair. You bet 700,000 and once again, your opponent calls.
The river is the 4, pairing the board and creating the possibility of a flush. You have 8,785,000 remaining in your stack and the pot size is 3,085,000.
The Questions
Do you check or bet? If betting, how much? Are you betting for value or as blocker bet? Is this the sort of situation where it would be beneficial to name your price or is turning your hand into a bluff catcher a better option? Given your opponent’s line, what could he be holding? What worse hands would call a value bet? What if you are raised? If checking, how big of a bet would you be willing to call?
What Actually Happened
At the 2014 World Series of Poker main event, Matthew Haugen was holding K10 on a board reading 1094K4 and opted to bet 2,200,000.
His opponent, Daniel Sindelar, quickly called with QJ for a turned straight and took the pot. Haugen went on to bust in 28th place, earning $230,487 for his finish.
Sindelar continued to accumulate chips and made the final table in third place overall, giving him a good shot to win the title and the $10 million first-place prize in November.
What would you have done and why? Let us know in the comments section below and try not to be results oriented. The best answer will receive a six-month Card Player magazine digital subscription.
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