While I’ve had my share of successes on the felt over the years, nothing compares to winning a World Series of Poker Bracelet. Now that the definitely-not-as-good-as-the-real-thing online WSOP season is in the rear-view mirror, I’m taking a trip down memory lane and reliving my favorite 10 hands from when I won the 2018 $5,000 No-Limit Hold’Em WSOP Bracelet.
World Series of Poker Las Vegas, NV June 11, 2018
Event #20: $5,000 Big Blind Ante Day 4 (Final Table)
Level 33-100,000-200,000 blinds, 200,000 big blind ante, my stack=5,390,000 chips
Hand #232 of the Final Table: Heads-up vs David Laka, he had roughly a 1.5-1 chip lead on me.
From the small blind, I limped with Q9dd. David then raised to 1.5mm chips—7.5 BBs, a VERY large sizing for that situation. Such a large sizing that I can’t accurately pinpoint his range based on what would “make sense” to raise to that size, because there simply isn’t ever a scenario where I think that’s the appropriate raise; that didn’t stop me from trying to figure it out anyway.
It’s incredibly unlikely that he would raise to 7.5 BBs with a large pocket pair like AA, KK, QQ, JJ, or TT. I think it’s also unlikely he would do it with a “standard” raising hand that plays well post-flop in heads-up, like AQ, KQ, etc. He could have total air and just figure that I can’t really call with any hand I would appropriately limp with, so unless I happened to have picked up an AA/KK type of hand and am trying to limp-trap-shove, I’ll be folding no matter what. He could also have a small pocket-pair that he’s trying to “protect” with an over-bet.
Stepping back and looking at the chip stacks, here is the situation as I focused on it: if I fold, I have roughly 25 BBs; if I shove, and he folds, I have roughly 35 BBs and the chip lead. That’s a pretty substantial difference. Given that I don’t think he has an absolute monster, I had to consider what hands he could have that he could conceivably call my shove with, and how does my queen-nine suited play against those hands?
My thinking was this: If he has a pocket pair below 9s, I’m in a coin-flip to have a commanding chip lead; that’s a position I’d be happy with, given that I’m playing against a superior heads-up player, and I’ve been behind in chips for basically the entire match. If he has a hand like AK or AJ, I’m only a modest underdog. Even if he has AQ, I am not in that bad of a situation equity-wise, and it seems an unlikely hand for him to have.
Ultimately, I decided that this was a strong risk/reward spot for me to shove—that I have a ton of fold equity, and even if I do get called by a low/mid pair (his most likely non-air hand, in my view), I’d happily take that spot. So I went ahead and moved all my chips in; he very quickly folded (note: we later saw that he had 82o for total air).
This gave me the chip lead, and while I briefly relinquished it before making one final comeback to win the Bracelet, this hand was important in giving me some breathing room against a superior heads-up opponent and as the stack sizes dwindled (relative to the blinds).