I started playing poker when I joined SIG in 2001, and many exceptional SIG players offered me free lessons if I sat to their right. The big hands I’ve won over the years all run together, but sitting at a fun and chatty table is my favorite aspect of the game. I’m currently a Technology Team Lead at SIG’s Bala office and enjoy gaming, music, cooking, and nerding.
After two unremarkable early rounds, I began Round 3 with 10,650 in chips and plan to make a better plan if I survived to the night’s sushi dinner.
My initial table was pretty passive with lots of limping, small raises, and almost no re-raising preflop, so it was a good opportunity to open up my starting hand and position requirements. I did a bit of that but didn’t find any big payoff, and as we hit the 3rd blind level, I found myself increasingly short-stacked with about 8BB when the table leaders had 20-25BB. I went into jam or fold mode and won more than my share of blinds and small pots with some combination of position, aggression, and (a couple) showdowns.
With about 15-18,000 chips, I regained the option to do something other than push all-in preflop and our table was broken up, so I had a good opportunity to change gears again. Some players from my previous table had grown suspicious of me raising in position (from the earlier all-in or fold festival), so raising for value was especially successful when I picked up quality hands.
As we neared the end of play short-handed, I opened for a table-standard raise with 99 under-the-gun and it folded around to a reasonable smaller-stacked player on the button who put in a modest re-raise. The blinds folded, I re-raised to commit the button and try to represent a big pair. He pushed all-in quickly. I immediately regretted not putting him all-in but eventually called for about 20% of my stack, figuring his range included many high card hands that were a coin-flip. He turned over JTo, my pair held up, and I finished the day with a healthy stack heading into the final round.
Subscribe Now
Get each new post sent straight to your inbox
We appreciate you taking the time to read our blog and share your feedback. Please be respectful and keep your comments as useful and relevant as possible. We reserve the right to remove comments that contain harassment, offensive language, or are promotional in nature.