Wanted to know if there are any thoughts about this hand and this hand is part of a section I'm quickly building up on my blog called "my 50 worst mistakes."
4) Thanet GUKPT, £1000 Main Event, Final hand
I had brought bacsk 26250 for the second day, and on this hand right at the end of the first level, found myself blinded down to 18,700. The hand was interesting both in two ways; firstly reading table dynamics, and secondly the challenge of trying to read someone's else style of play at this stage of the tournament, where the re-raise all-in becomes a real feature.
My eliminator was Simon "Aces" Trumper, a really strong player, but one whose style was possible to get some insight to. This was partly because his attitude seemed to be very similar to mine, that he would go out of his way to avoid the 50-50% gamble for all his chips. He had been involved in two of the three previous pots, and both would yield a big clue for this pot, where I ultimately busted out.
Firstly, an interesting hand had created both alot of discussion and good banter, with
Mike Ellis eventually calling the clock on himself! Simon "Aces" Trumper held pocket tens in the small blind, and had decided not to move in before the flop to Ellis' hijack raise, even though the stack size would have fitted perfectly for the re-shove. In stead, he moved in OOP when the flop produced no ace or king. It isa move that I really like as it does alot to reduce the variance of tournament play (Ellis incidentally folded pocket nines with seconds left on the clock, a well considered read confirming his class)
Two hands later, Trumper had then raised UTG +1, been called by Ellis on the button, and had the small blind shove all-in. He had some odds to make the call for a big pot, but eventually chose to pass.
The reason I have given details of these two hands is that they not only give an insight into his style, but change the dynamics of what may happen in subsequent hands. In particular, the last hand can be of great importance to the current one, and a question you should always ask yourself when a player is involved in two consecutive hands is "What happened to this player in the last hand, and how is it likely to affect this one?"
Proceeding to the hand in question, "Aces" limped UTG for 1,600, and an unknown player limped to the right of me in the CO. With blinds of 800/1,600 (100), this meant there was the pot already contained 6,500 chips, a decent fraction of my 18,700 stack. In this scenario, I will often be willing to push. My ace-ten is not a hand I love in this spot (as if you get caught, you will never have the two live cards that, say, 98 suited may offer), but it was deinitely better for the push than a random hand.
My decision would of course hinge on the read I had on the hands of the two players to my right. With the guy on my right limping behind, he was surely just looking for the chance to play a cheap pot, and so I would need a good think about Trumper. TWo things seemed to be in my favour; he did not like to gamble pre-flop, but principally he had been forced to lay down after raising in the previous pot. This meant that, if he had found a super-strong hand on this hand, he would surely have raised. This is a feature of every player's game, whatever their style, and combines the two emotions of "well, I was frustrated that they re-raised last time, but now let's hope that they do it again."
As I was able to eliminate a big pair from Trumper's range, it seemed ripe for the move in. Within the next thirty seconds, however, he had quickly shipped it, turned ace king, and I was getting on my bike back to Birmingham. (Of course the board had also come out without a ten, but those days are long gone!)
I have thought alot about the hand , and realised my mistake. My thinking was right on one level, but I failed to consider a whole second level of thought. It was fair to elimiate aces, kings and queens from Trumper's range, but having done that, I should have thought "Well, what is it that Simon is limping with if it is not one of those hands?"
Simon Trumper is very skilled, but also very solid. This is important to know, as it would probably mean that the frustration of being re-raised out of the previous pot might make him now fold some hands that he might sometimes limp with. I had taken off the top off his range before moving in, but had not stopped to realise that I should maybe taken off the bottom as well.
I do not know whether I realistically could have guessed this at the time, but there was a big clue that he might have in fact have exactly ace-king. I should have thought of it like this- Simon has shown that he likes to avoid 50-50% races, and may be frustrated about being re-raised off the previous hand. Therefore, he could well be pulling a really strong move, which is the limp with ace-king in early position, intending then to re-raise all in, if there is a raiser. Now, you can be the on forcing the decision onto 1010 and 99, rather than facing that decision with ace-king yourself.
There probably could have been other weaker hands he might have limped with, but I should at least given the danger hand of ace-king the biggest weighting in his range.
It was a big lesson for me that I shouldn't make any decisions based on a positive factor, before I have taken the time to consider whether there are any more worrying factors to build in.
wp "Aces," gg nh fu wong to me
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