Analyze Your Play

By Wesley R. Young

Recently I was playing in a no limit Texas holdem sit-n-go tournament when the following hand came up.

There were six players left and the blinds were 50 / 100. I was in the big blind with around 1800 in chips and the under-the-gun player had about 1600. He made a minimum raise to 200 and it was folded around to me. I looked at my cards and found 5 7 off suit. I called the raise and the flop came 2 5 6 rainbow. I bet 100, my opponent minimum raised 100, and I called. The turn was a 4, and I moved all in. My opponent called and turned over JJ. The river didn’t help me and I was crippled.

Here was my thought process throughout the hand. When my opponent raised under-the-gun, I felt he/she must have a decent hand, but it could be as poor as AQ or TT. I also felt that with the right flop I could win their entire stack, and I didn’t want to be viewed as someone who could have their blind stolen. I also decided to bet into my opponent after the flop no matter what hit. When he/she minimum raised me after the flop, I felt he/she was not strong. I felt they had AK and were trying to move me off the pot without risking their whole stack. Once the turn came and gave me not only a pair, but also an open end straight draw, I decided that if I checked and my opponent moved in I would have to call, I decided to put the pressure on him/her. Notice that if my read of AK had been correct, I would have won the hand.

When I looked back at this hand, though it may surprise many of you, I felt that I played it correctly for my playing style. The only realistic alternatives to the way I played it were to fold pre-flop or to re-raise pre-flop. The reason I don’t like to fold pre-flop in this situation is it shows weakness and I can double up easily with a good flop. The reason I didn’t re-raise pre-flop was I would have had to fold if my opponent would have moved all in and I wouldn’t have the chance to hit a good flop. As I mentioned above, checking the turn was not an option because I would have called a bet after a check. If you would call anyway, it is always better to put pressure on your opponent first. This allows them to either fold and/or hopefully make a mistake.

One other point is that I would not have played this hand the same way in a multi table tournament. I would have simply folded pre-flop and waited for a better opportunity. Because of the escalating structure of the blinds in sit-n-go tournaments, you are often forced to play close hands to keep from being blinded out.

Here is the moral of the story. Always take a few minutes to analyze your play after a session to see if there is anywhere you could improve. I felt better about my decisions after analyzing them even though the hand didn’t work out for me this time. If my opponent had folded, you wouldn’t be reading this today.

Until next week, good luck at the tables!