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TIPS FROM THE PROS
Howard Lederer
April 3, 2006
In the middle and later stages of
tournaments, there are often times when
you're forced to make a pretty big
commitment on a relatively weak holding.
These are uncomfortable spots because you
never want to risk a large percentage of
your chips with a mediocre hand. Things get
even more difficult when you're playing from
the blinds and out of position.
For example, say you're playing late in a
tournament. The blinds are $500 and $1,000,
and there's a $100 ante. You're in the small
blind with $18,000. It's folded around to
the button, an aggressive player who raises
frequently in late position. He has $30,000
in his stack and he raises to $3,500. You
look at your cards and see Ad-9s.
You know that A-9 isn't a great hand, but
you can't ignore it in this situation. First
off, given your opponent's history, he may
very well be raising with a hand that is far
worse than yours. In fact, in this spot, he
could very well have two rags. Another
consideration is that there are a lot of
chips in play. Between the blinds, antes,
and your opponent's raise, you stand to pick
up over $5,000 in chips if you can take down
this pot, which would be a nice addition to
your short stack.
So, you're probably going to want to play
this hand. But what's the best action?
At first, it might seem that calling is a
reasonable course, as it would keep you from
getting overly committed on this marginal
hand. But calling has some pretty big
downsides. With a hand like A-9, you're
usually not going to like the flop very
much. In fact, you'll fail to make as much
as a pair about two-thirds of the time. If
you do flop a pair of 9s, how are you going
to proceed if the flop also has an over
card? Even on an Ace-high flop, you'll have
a tough time knowing if your hand is good.
What's more, if you miss the flop
completely, you leave yourself vulnerable to
being outplayed. It's going to be very hard
to bet if the flop contains three cards that
don't help your hand. If you check, your
opponent will likely make a continuation
bet, and you'll be hard-pressed to continue,
even though Ace-high might be good.
In spots like this, your best move is to
press an edge while you have it - before the
flop. Re-raise all-in pre-flop. Your
opponent probably won't have a hand that he
can call with and, if he does, you'll have
plenty of outs. You still have about a 25%
chance against AK, for example. Not good,
but not dead.
The important thing to keep in mind is that,
in the later stages of a tournament, you
don't want to make many decisions after the
flop when you have a medium-strength hand
like Ace-middle kicker or middle pocket
pair, and you're playing out of position.
Put your chips in while you think you have
the best of it, and hope for the best. If
you let these marginal but good situations
pass you by, you might regret it later when
your stack has been whittled down even
further.
Howard Lederer |
