Round 2: The Deliberator

Today’s guest post comes from The Deliberator, a Development Team Lead with a loose aggressive poker style.
He’s been playing for the seven years he’s been at SIG; let’s see if that practice pays off for him.

Round 2 was uneventful except for 1 hand I played pretty badly and one pair of pocket aces. The pocket aces ended up being a chop pot because my opponent also had pocket aces and we both went all in pre-flop. The hand I played badly was where I started with A7 off suit on the little blind. 4 to 5 people limped in and the table had been pretty passive the whole night including the player to my left (the big blind). I decided to limp in, not something I like to do often. The big blind did not raise and we saw the flop. The cards were A 3 9 rainbow. I checked, which I feel is the right move, and then the rest of the players checked as well. The turn is a 6 and I felt I had the best hand. Instead of betting out though, I timidly checked and the player to my left bet 1000 which was around half the pot. I then called and the river is another 6. I checked again then the big blind bet another 2000 chips which is again about half the pot. I thought for a while, and then folded not being able to rule out enough hands that I was losing to. With only 4K chips left, if I was wrong, it would have crippled me in the tournament.

Afterwards, the player mentioned that he slow played AK throughout and I was way behind. Even if he was telling the truth about his hand, I feel I made two big mistakes during the hand. On the turn, I should have led out. I would have gotten more information and would have been better off later to make any decisions. The other thing I could have done was lead out on the river with a 1000 bet to test whether or not he was strong or not. If he was strong, I would have most likely gotten re-raised all-in and could fold. If he called, I would be winning more of the hands then I would be losing, and if he folded I would have taken away his opportunity to bluff. I still managed to squeak into round 3 with 4000 chips, but I will be back to all-in or nothing early on in the 3rd round just to stay alive.