Dakota Kid Presents - Deadwood Nuts

Playing a Big Hand in the Big Blind

By
Mike Randall

Recently I entered a no-limit hold�em tournament at the Silverado in Deadwood. I drew a tuff table with a line up of several experienced and solid players. The seating assignments of some key players was Jim in seat ten, Floyd in seat one, myself in seat two and Jerry in seat three. There I was right between three of the best players at that table, talk about drawing a bad seat! I made a few bad calls and a bad play and soon I was very short stacked, when I picked up QJ of diamonds and made an all in call. Unfortunately I had called AQ of clubs and was eliminated from the tournament. As you can see this story is not about any hands or plays that I made but rather a couple of hands played at my table.

This tournament started the players with four thousand in chips and the blinds at 25-50 giving the players a lot of playing time. The two hands in question occurred in the first round back to back between the same two players.

The two players involved were Floyd and Jim who was to Floyd�s right in the ten seat. In the first hand Floyd raised the minimum in first position and every one folded to Jim in the big blind. Jim re-raised about double the amount and Floyd called. The flop came ten high rainbow and Jim led out with a big bet. Floyd studied his hand for a few seconds showed us pocket jacks and mucked his hand. Now with a ten high flop pocket jacks are hard to get away from, but Floyd had put Jim on a big pocket pair when he re-raised out of the big blind. Good read Floyd as Jim told me a few days latter that he indeed had a big hand in the big blind with pocket aces.

The very next hand turned out to be one of the biggest in the tournament for the winner. Now this time Floyd has the big blind and everyone folds around to Jim in the small blind who smooth called. Floyd checked and the flop came all small, but nothing that suggested a possible strait. Jim checked and Floyd made a small bet, Jim called thinking Floyd might be trying to steal. A ten came on the turn giving Jim top pair. Jim checked possibly thinking to catch Floyd betting a smaller pair, but Floyd checked behind him. On the river Jim checked and Floyd bet $700 and Jim called thinking Floyd still had an under pair or was on a complete steal. Floyd turned over pocket aces, another big hand in the big blind. I think Floyd had us all fooled on that hand; I know I didn�t expect him to show a big hand like that. Floyd won back what he had lost in the previous hand plus some. Floyd continued to play well and won the tournament, and the guy on my left went on to get second, there was no beating those two that day.

This is two examples of how to play big hands in the blind. It is a difficult situation because of your position, but also tricky because other players are not expecting you to have a big hand.

In the first hand the aces got action by a minimum raise giving that person a choice as to slow play a heads up situation or to re-raise. In a multi-way pot you want to raise big with the aces to narrow the field, but in the heads up situation you want to raise only what you think your opponent will call, in this case double the bet. If there is a raise you shouldn�t slow play with a smooth call, because if your opponent doesn�t get any help on the flop he will not call a bet and you have lost the bet you would have gotten pre-flop. After the flop you want to make a large pot size bet which will usually win it for you right there unless the other person has hit top pair or a big draw. Slow playing after the flop is asking for trouble unless you think you opponent will give you an opportunity to check raise or you are last to act and you think your opponent is weak and you want to induce a call from you opponent on the river. Many players would have called with the pocket over pair in that situation, but Floyd wasn�t going for that after the pre-flop re-raise.

With the second hand the aces didn�t get raised and it was heads up between the blinds. Slow playing good hands can be a dangerous thing because you allow poor hands to catch up, but if you raise the other blind here he will probably fold. In tournaments you have to take the opportunity with big hands to trap the other player in order to build chips, so slow playing in this situation would be a good play. On the flop a small bet is good; making it look like you might be making a weak attempt to steal and giving the other player a cheap turn card. Now most times I would have bet big on the turn after getting called on the flop. Floyd�s check on the turn reinforced the weak attempt to steal ploy which induced a call of a large bet on the river.

As with most hands every situation is different even when you are in the same position. So the next time you get aces remember your position, betting situation and try to maximize there potential.