BETFRED CLASSIC

BETFRED CLASSIC

9 May 2008
It was a Saturday night and the tournament was a 200 euro freezout with 86 players.
Each player was given 10,000 starting chips and the blinds started 25/25 with 30 min levels

Level 1
I decided that I want to play this event well, concentrate and be in for the long hall so patience was top of my list. This was a good opportunity to get some practice in before Vegas.
I was playing small pot poker with the table and collecting chips nicely.
After 30 minutes and on the last hand of level 1 I picked up AA under the gun (first to act).
I could tell from the first 30 min at the table that if I limped in this pot that I would probably get 4 or 5 callers and this was not how I wanted to play the hand so I decided to raise 5 x the big blind to 125. I got 1 caller from late position and then the guy in the small blind announced raise. This was like music to my ears and as he was counting out his raise his hands were trembling. This I thought was even better as now I could put him on a big hand AK or KK – 99. He raised to 325 and I thought for a minute before I made it 1625. The other player folded and the small blind just called. Now I could rule out KK QQ and put him on AK, JJ, TT or 99.
At this point the small blind was the chip leader at the table and I was second in chips.
The flop came down 4 8 4 rainbow. Perfect. The small blind announced ALL IN.
I needed no time to think as I pushed my chips into the middle. What could I be losing to that he would bet all in with? 88,44, A4 or 84 and surely with any of these hands he would not come out betting especially all in!
The only time I would have to think about this was if I was playing with pros who could read me for AA and know that I would call them on this flop.
The cards went on there backs and to my amazement I could not have been more wrong. He showed 88 and I was drawing this to 2 outs.
No help from the turn or river and I was out………………………………….

Time to reflect on my play from the side lines and analyze the hand.
Could I have got away from this hand?
Maybe if I limped pre-flop and he didn’t re-raise his 88 pre flop I could have bet the flop and folded to a re-raise but the way this hand was played I was sure he had QQ or JJ. But that’s poker he called of 16% of his stack pre flop to a 5x BB raise UTG and a big re-raise after he raised me with 88.
I want to play in these situations all day but of course you can not win them all.
I asked him later why he moved all in as I am always looking to study players and understand their thinking process. He told me that he thought he had the best hand so he bet.
This answer threw me a little and so I asked him why all in? well he said I didn’t want to get outdrawn!