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No Limit Holdem is full of difficult decisions. It is a game of hunter versus prey; Trapper versus Trapee. One of my most difficult decisions came in the Foxwoods Poker Classic in March 2007.

I had decided to enter the $2000 No Limit Holdem event with a friend. Foxwoods is generous with the starting chip counts. For this tournament, you received T7000 in chips. Levels went up every 50 minutes. Blinds started at 25-50. This was definitely a deep-stack tournament (my favorite kind).

My table was quiet. Everybody was fairly solid. About 40 minutes into the tournament, this hand went down:

I am in a later middle position (one to the right of the cutoff).

UTG makes a standard raise of 3x BB to T150. UTG+1 folds. There are two callers by the time it gets to me. I peek down at:

Well, I am curious of what the UTG raiser has. I decide to call.

The cutoff calls, and everybody else folds.

Pot: T825

The flop comes out:

Everybody checks. I feel like somebody in EP is sandbagging, so I check as well. The cutoff checks.

Pot: T825

Turn:

The first couple of people check. The guy to my immediate right bets out for T400. This looks like a weak bet where he might have a pocket pair or a weak ace. I call. The cutoff folds, as does everybody else. We are heads up.

River:

The guy to my right leads out for T800.

I raised to T2400. He promptly pushes all-in. Wow - I was not expecting that. I now have a difficult decision in front of me. I asked for information with my raise and got an answer. Now, I must try to figure out what he has.

He certainly would not push all in without a strong hand. I doubt he would put his tournament life on the line with a lone Ace. I conclude that he as a Full House - but which one? Here is the thought process that I went through at the table:

Possible Full House holdings include:

AA, AJ, A3, A7, 33, or 77.

I replayed the betting action. He limped preflop. The limp STRONGLY suggests that he does NOT hold Pocket Aces. If he had pocket Aces, with two callers in front of him, the Rockets would be vulnerable. He would have re-raised big preflop. So I can toss AA from the possible holdings.

A3/A7/AJ

Calling with A3s from a mid position is a weak call (the call would be great in a cash game, but not in a tournament). Judging by his past play, I do not think he is that bad, so I disregard that. A7s is a weak possibility, but wouldn’t he have bet the flop to see where he is with the 7 kicker? I certainly think he would. Nonetheless, A7s remains a dubious possibility. AJ - Calling a UTG raise with AJ is fairly weak (I know that I would throw away AJ to a UTG raise). The betting pattern seems to fit AJ (check the flop, bet small on the turn, all in on the river). He might have feared an AQ or AK from the UTG raiser, but lost the fear when the J hit the turn.

33/77: These two hands certainly fit the betting patterns. A call preflop with 33 or 77 in hopes of hitting a set, especially with a few callers in front of you, is a legitimate play. The check on the flop would fit 33. He would not want to scare out any worse hands.

A small bet on the turn would fit either hand. The 77 might take a stab at the pot while 33 would be trying to build the pot. The river card would have hit 77, while 33 already had the boat on the flop.

The best candidate hands are:

AJ, 33, and 77 - while A7s is a remote possibility.

This guy is a solid player, and I cannot convince myself that he played A7s to a UTG raise. It is too weak of a play for this guy.

Next, I go into the think-tank to calculate some hand distributions:

AJ: 2 remaining combinations (two unaccounted aces and one unaccounted jack)

33: 3 combinations

77: 3 combinations

I can beat six of the eight hand combinations that he probably has.

Do you put your tournament life on the line here? I have the guy covered, but I would only have about T300 chips left. On the other hand, if I bust him, I am one of the tournament chip leaders (which really means nothing in the first hour of a tournament). What a difficult decision!

As I tried to make my decision, I could not help but to think of how I played this hand like a total donkey. I SHOULD have re-raised preflop. I SHOULD have bet the flop. I SHOULD have raised the turn. Any of these bets would have given me more information to help me make my decision a little easier.

Was I capable of folding a full-house here? Given that I could beat 75% of the most likely hands against me, and considering that I thought that calling a UTG raise with AJ was weak, I made the call.

Unfortunately, he showed the AJ and I was crippled. Difficult decisions can be even more difficult when you play the hand badly and do not have the information that you need. This hand is yet another example of how calling is the WORST play that you can make.

Remember: Fold, Raise, then Call as a last resort!

I occasionally play in this one small home game. The players there are not very good, but this game is more about socializing than playing poker (for me at least). It is a low-stress game designed to be fun. The buy-in is small and they play a tournament, not a cash game.

The guys at the game look up to me not only because I have played in several WPT events but also because I have met and played against several professional poker players. At what should I draw the line between being a mentor and winning a pot? Here is the quandry that I was in:

I have:

on a board of:

I bet the flop and was called. We both checked the hand down to the showdown.

My opponent announced, “Two Pairs - Eights and Fours” while he flips up:

Immediately, I saw that he had the straight, and technically I was beat. My moral issue was that he mis declared his hand. I saw it, and I knew that I lost. Should I say something? This is a friendly and social game, but it is poker.

After pondering for a second, I had a compromise. I announced my hand, which was two pairs also - Queens and Fours. I flipped up the cards and waited to see what would happen. Nobody at the table caught the fact that he had a straight. The dealer pushed the chips to me. After he pushed them, I just let the chips sit there until the next person started to shuffle the cards. I was more than willing to cough up the chips if anybody even hinted about the other guy having a straight. TDA rules say that a verbal declaration about a player’s hand is not binding.

As I stacked my chips, I could not help but to feel guilty. In any serious game, I would not feel bad at all, but somehow, I could not shake the guilt. Perhaps I should fold a winning hand at showdown against the same guy next time we play to make up for the bad Karma that I just received.

My first blog post was about Chris Ferguson and how he is in the middle of an experiment of trying to turn ZERO dollars into $10,000. It seems like a lot of people have been inspired by this. I regularly hear people in the 5/10 cent no limit tables say how they are trying the same experiment.

As I watch them play, I wonder how far they will actually make it. For that matter, I wonder if I will ever make it. I am a good enough player to accomplish the feat, I have no doubt about that. My problem (which I think will be the downfall of 99% of the people who are trying the same experiment), will be a little thing called patience.

While playing, I could not help but to wonder how long Chris took to build this bankroll. In his tip, he said he was “almost a year into an experiment”. I was curious about this comment. Exactly how long, what did his bankroll look like, and how long did it take for him to move up the ranks? Full Tilt must have had a lot of requests for this information. I logged on to play today and I saw a headline in the game lobby about the Chris Ferguson Challenge. I visited the page, and low and behold, there was some of the information I was looking for.

Most interesting is the graph titled, “The Journey Begins”. For the first seven months, he only breaks $10 once. The page then goes on to say that Chris cashed in a $1 Multi Table Tournament for $104. Even after that, it took nine months to reach the current $9000+ that he has in his account (currently at $9553.34). That is pushing 16 months! I guess I need to have some more patience.

Current Full Tilt Bankroll: $27.78 (down from $31.03 in the last update).

When I was at the Bike a few months ago, I sat down at the 5/10 NL table. The players were competent, and the game was rolling along just fine. Around 1am, none other than Jose Canseco came to the table and sat down. I have played against several pros, but never against a famous professional athlete.

Jose sat down and introduced his girlfriend. He explained with disdain that he had been playing at the 5/5 NL tables, and how he had trips beat four times on the river. He figured that he would come over to the larger stakes table to “play some better poker.”

After about 90 minutes of playing, I got tangled up in this hand with Jose:

I was in EP and held:

I made a raise to $40, which was called by a guy in seat 4. Jose makes the call, then his girlfriend calls as well.

Pot: $175

The flop delivers:

Not exactly what I wanted to see, but I had the nut flush draw nonetheless. I led out with a continuation bet of $80. The guy in seat 4 folds. Without hesitation, Canseco pops it up to $200. Jose’s girlfriend does not hesitate too long and she calls. At this point, I know I am beat, but I have the draw to the nuts.

Quickly, I calculate my pot odds:

175 + 80 + 200 + 200 makes $655 in the pot. I must call $120 more. I am getting 5:1 Pot Odds. Since I am a 4:1 to make my hand on the next card, I easily make the easy call.

Pot: $775

The turn arrives, and it is:

Blah, I hate playing out of position.

I check.

Jose decides to push all in for another $220.

Jose’s girlfrind calls, but she only has an additional $180.

I run the pot odds calculation and arrive with this:

Pot: 1175 (775 + 220 + 180)

To Call: $220

It is another easy call.

The river delivers:

Giving me the nuts. Jose throws his pocket 44 on the table and yells loudly at how bad of a player I am.

“I cannot believe this. That was terrible.”, he says as he storms off.

It goes to show you that knowing your pot odds is a critical piece of information. If Canseco had pushed all-in on the flop, I would have had to fold.

I guess he did not understand pot odds very well.