I witnessed an interesting
hand play out tonight in a 2-5 No Limit game at the Red Rock Casino. I’ll change the names of the players involved, hitherto be named: The Hero, The Villain and The Sheriff.
Our “Hero” opens the pot from
EP with a raise to 30. The Villain in MP, makes it 90 to go and the Sheriff in
LP, comes along for the ride. This re-opens the betting for our Hero, who
promptly 4 bets it to 285, which sends the villain into “the tank.” After 2
solid minutes of heavy thought and asking how much each player has behind, he
moves all-in for 1k. The sheriff, with a shrug of the shoulders, reluctantly
puts in his remaining 600 into the middle, which sends the action now over to
our Hero once again. Who, by the
way, is sitting on pocket Kings! Put your self in this situation now and in 30
seconds, decide what to do. Go!
The reason I gave you 30
seconds was because that is what our Hero had before he quietly mucked his
hand. Knowledge and experience of playing with the villain surely helped him in
this spot, but still it is a tough spot and that surely will put to test ones
discipline. Remember, you’re staring at a pot that has over 2k in it and you
have two kings!
A nice lay down was made by
our Hero, as the villain, after being called by the sheriff, reveals AA. The
sheriff, in true form, flips over A6 of spades. The board ran out A-6-7-3-3 and
our villain shot the sheriff, but not our Hero. Who, by the way, quietly got up
a couple of minutes later and took a walk, before returning to play with a
clear presence of mind.
There are a couple of
valuable lessons to learn from this hand and I hope you’ll take them with you
when you play.
Kenna James
Professional Player and Coach
www.kennajames.com
