This past Sunday I played in Poker Stars Sunday Millions tournament. $215 buy in NL event with a 5 million guarantee! 56,000 people showed up! I went pretty deep, finishing 970th for a $1700 payday. 1st place paid over 1.6 million dollars and as if that wasn’t enough, a brand new Lamborgini. I had many interesting hands along the way, but I thought I would pick one out and talk about my thought process during the play of the hand.
BLINDS 4,000-8,000/ 1K Ante
MY STACK: 350K
MY POS: CUT-OFF
OPP STACK: 420K
HIS POS: High-jack
THE HAND: A7
Opponent raises to 22k, I Re-Raise making it 75k to go, everyone folds and I win a 43K pot moving my stack from 350k to 393k.
MY THINKING:
A7 is obviously far from a premium hand on a full table, and shrinks up even more facing a raise. However, there were a few elements that existed that made this situation perfect for this profitable play.
First item of consideration was my opponent’s hand frequency. It was above average and with one of the bigger stacks at the table, I figured his range to be wide.
Second item of consideration was OPP table position. He was in late position.
Third item comes from seeing the situation from in his perspective. The Big Blind was short stacked with 82k and a regular size raise would put the big blind in a tough spot to call or raise without a premium hand. From his perspective a raise would be profitable often enough with almost any two cards.
Fourth item of consideration was that my move was un-exploitable. If my opponent 4 bet or shoved on me, I could safely fold and still be in okay position in the tournament. For him to re-raise me without a real hand based on the size of my stack seemed improbable. My play would force him to a premium hand and put him in a tough spot calling out of position with any mediocre hand for a large percentage of his stack.
Fifth item of consideration was taking advantage of the situation to keep up with the quickly increasing blinds. Not waiting for a hand, but aggressively looking to hold my slightly above average chip position in the tournament.
These were the five items of considerations and evaluations before deciding to execute my decision to make my play and raise. Unfortunately there were a couple of situations I didn’t taken advantage of because the margins for error were too small. As a result, I became hand dependant and allowed my stack to dip too low before taking a stand with pocket 88’s in back position versus KK’s pre-flop and hit the rail.
Enjoy the Journey!
Kenna James
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