Gary's Poker Journey: He's On Fire Like NBA Jam

I "won" another tournament...I have cashed in about 50% or more of the tournaments I enter on Thursdays when my wife and I go play. This tournament was interesting...I did extremely well in the beginning and middle, however towards the end I went card dead and regained life just in time to take the chip lead within a 30 minute timeframe. I will take you through two hands that I played.

The first hand I will discuss I picked up 9 Club

in late position. Blinds were $150/300 with a $25 ante. I usually would raise in this spot, but I had a maniac raising every hand to my left, so I just called expecting him to raise...but he didn't. There were 4 players to the flop:

I flopped four of a kind. No you might think my best move is to bet out here...well I disagree. I have a MONSTER hand and there is virtually nothing out there that can beat me. So I checked and the maniac decided to bet $1000, I just called. The turn came:

I checked, and the maniac bet $3000 and I called. The river came:

I checked and he checked behind. I was mad that he checked behind because I wanted him to bluff at the pot again, but he did not. I probably should have bet the river on in hindsight but who knows...he might have just folded anyway.

The key to a MONSTER hand like quads is not to bet your opponent off of their hand and allow them to do the betting. There is nothing out there that can beat me and I shouldn't be betting in this spot because there is a huge chance that no one has anything on a K99 board and in this spot if they did have a King it was a bad one because there was no raise pre-flop.

The 2nd hand that I will discuss is a hand where I had about $25,000 in chips left. I raised to $6,500 on the button with AK. What happened next surprised me...the small blind shoved all in over top of me putting me in a position where I had to call all my chips in order to see the flop, turn, and river. Now In this spot I gave up about 25% of my chip stack on the raise. If I fold that is a huge lose for me and if I call I could be going home. Now I thought about this reraise I was facing and realized this guy barely had me covered with his chip stack. I asked myself, what type of hand would he do that with? I also thought about the facts of the situation...I have been at the table and only played one or two hands and had been EXTREMELY tight. I knew when I raised he expected me to have VERY BIG cards. So for him to put himself at risk by shoving all his chips into the middle meant he had a way better hand than he thought I would have. This thought process lead me to believe I was beat and I folded. He graciously showed me AA and I was like OH YEAH!!!! because I knew my read was correct and could assume my reads moving forward would be spot on in most cases with him. Anywho I enjoyed sharing with you this time about a couple of the hands that I played during my session. I hope you enjoyed my post.

The Final Table...My chips in the bottom right. This chip stack next to the dealer was the chip leader until I doubled up through him. Before he could pay me we decided to chop 4 ways.