$1000 No Limit Hold'em, Bellagio's Festa al Lago IV 2005
Blinds 500 and 1000, Ante 100
We were steadily approaching the final 50 players -the cash payday- in this 450+ person tournament and I was sitting pretty at around 19,000 in chips. I was comfortable, picking my spots well and, you know, basically floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. Then out of nowhere this black vortex of a hand dropped in on me and took the wind out of my sails. Now, it didn't actually put me out of the tournament, but it is such an interesting hand that I wanted to give you guys a peek at all the angles of it.

The blinds stood at 500 and 1000, with an ante of 100, so right off the bat there was 2400 in the pot. The gentleman in second position had been on life support for some time and decided this was his moment to make a move. "All-in", he barked and shoved his disheveled stack into the pot. Upon first examination it looked that he had only put in about 2200 chips, which was a smallish raise. I looked down into the eyes of the K, who was saddled next to the A. Not a bad starting hand to be sure, but here is where all the confusion begins...

I decided to raise, which is probably pretty obviously the right move. The question is, what is the correct amount to raise here?

I decided that a total bet of 6000 chips should do the trick, a call of his initial 2200 coupled with a raise of 4800. Sounded about right to me. After all, anyone who wanted to play the hand at this point would need to pay the steep price of 6x the big blind. By "regulation" standards this would be a considered a small raise, barely more than doubling the initial raise, but I was taking into consideration the 6x factor here. I did contemplate raising more, but felt that this would be sufficient.

We had a wild card in the equation though, and as it turned out the early position player actually had more chips than what was apparent in the stack initially. He had actually made it around 3200 to go, instead of what I thought had been 2200. The dealer gathered all his chips in and then proceeded to count and stack them. The action hadn't moved past me, but I had already put my 6000 into the pot. Our second question is this: does the extra 1000 chips change anything, and should/would I have raised more?

When we had the chips all counted up I did want to raise more, say to about 8000 or 9000, probably getting into a heads-up situation for sure with the all-in player. Of course I didn't actually have enough in the pot for a legal raise yet, having not completely doubled the first raise, so unfortunately I was not allowed to put in a substantial amount more, as it was ruled it would be a string-bet. Nuts...and not the good kind! I did however, need to double the first raise so I was required to put in another 400 or so chips, bring the total up to about 6400 chips to go, for those acting behind me.

The fact of the matter was that the extra raise probably wouldn't have made any difference most of the time. Anyone who is willing to call a raise of 6x the big blind, with one all-in player and one player coming over the top of the first player is probably going to play for 9x the big blind as well. In this particular instance though, who knows?

The action rolled around to Thom Werthmann, who was in the big blind. He thought for quite some time and I knew this posed a problem for me. I put him on a hand like 9's, 10's, or if I was lucky AQ, and assumed he was deciding if he wanted to reraise or not, possibly even move-in.. Thom had roughly about 26,000 in chips, so he had me covered.

The thing about the situation was that I desperately wanted Thom to raise me all-in. Maybe even needed him to do so, to keep me alive in the hand if an A or K didn't flop. I certainly would have called in a second, had he done so. As it stood though, my having position on Thom for the rest of the hand was actually a disadvantage here, as I knew if the flop came all rags that he would move-in immediately, effectively squeezing me out of the hand.

As it shook out, Thom decided just to call, making the pot now about 17,400. Quite a huge pot at this point in the tournament. The flop came down 2 3 9, and it was a disaster for me. I hadn't connected in anyway and there was still a good chance of me being pushed out of this pot.

I already knew his move before he made it. "All-in", Thom called out. He had me covered, so I was basically deciding whether I wanted this AK to take me to the promised land, or send me to the grave on this day. I had an extremely difficult decision here. The pot was huge, and if I won it I would be catapulted up to about 40,000+ in chips and really having a shot to win this event.

Let's take a look, oddswise: I was getting slightly less than 2.5-1 odds on my money, but thought I would definitely need to hit either an ace or king on one of the last two cards to take down the pot. The odds of that were 6 wins (assuming all A's and K's were live) vs. 31 dead cards. That's 5-1 against hitting my hand. Not very good odds.

I also had to take into consideration that I had put about 1/3 of my chips into the pot already. Despite the fact that the odds didn't seem in my favor, was this the hand that I felt I needed to go with? I was also factoring in if Thom had hit his set of 9's on the flop, based on my initial read of his hand. I eventually decided this was incredibly unlikely based on how he played the hand after the flop. As it turned out, after much deliberation, I ended up begrudgingly folding the hand.

Thom turned up a pair of hooks, JJ, and the all-in player held the KQ. Seems like a good laydown at this point, right? Oh but no, my friends, this is poker and every time you make a laydown like I did, it will come back to bite you, and every time you go with a hand there you will be punished. It has been decreed by the poker gods...you just can't win.

The turn brought the K, and the river added unnecessary insult to my injury, in the form of the A. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, er, 40,000 in chips.

I took a sip from my water bottle, put it down, and dragged Thom outside to beat the hell out of him. Just kidding, of course. I only broke a few of his fingers.

In reality Thom's deft decision not to reraise pre-flop saved him here from losing a lot of chips (13,000 more), kept the all-in player from being knocked out of the tournament, and severely dampened my chances of making a deep run. I thought he had played it perfectly and greatly increased his chances of winning the hand by pushing me out.

I went out a short time later, on the bubble, 51st, and was left lamenting this hand. Should I have raised more initially? I certainly would have had there not been the confusion about the first player's chips. Should Thom have pushed in pre-flop? It's a tough decision either way there. This time it ended up saving him some money. Is there any chance that I should have called with my AK after the flop, having so much invested equity in the pot already? I don't think so, but it's possible. Sometimes you just have to go with a hand after you have invested much of your stack. There are certainly many players who would have.

I think the most frustrating aspect of the hand was that I could see it unfolding as Thom mulled over what to do. I knew how the hand was going to play out, and I was powerless to stop it at that point. Whatever he decided I would just have to play off of, instead of being the one calling the shots. Blech, I hate not being the one calling the shots.

All in all, an extremely interesting hand, and one that we even discussed at the table for a while afterward. Thom's decision proved to be the right one for that exact moment, and unfortunately I was the one who was hurt the most by it.