TalkFlop.com Blog

We all know that when it gets down to the last couple of players in a tournament starting hand restrictions go WAY down. A hand that’s complete garbage from late position at a full table suddenly becomes a potential goldmine. Here’s an example of one such hand.

We’re down to three handed (I’d been out for quite a while so I was just watching at this point ) and the players are trading chips back and forth. Tony is a slight chip leader at this point over Judy and Kathy who’s on the short stack (but not by much).

Judy calls on the button, Kathy calls from the small blind and Tony checks his option from the big blind. The flop comes out:

Kathy makes a bet from the small blind, Tony calls from the big blind and Judy moves all in from the button.  Kathy thinks about her hand for a moment and calls for all her chips.  Tony looks at his hand once more and he calls as well!

Judy shows for top pair with top kicker.

Kathy shows for middle pair.

Tony shows for bottom two pair.

The turn comes a giving Tony a full house.  Both Kathy (Jacks) and Judy (Kings) are drawing to 3 outs which don’t come on the river ending the tournament with Tony as the champion.  You can see a picture of the hand here.

Looking back on the hand now I can’t find a whole lot of fault with any of the plays here.  Judy’s call on the button with AK possibly should have been a raise, but she most likely would have won the hand right there winning just the blinds.  Of course hindsight is 20/20 and this would have been the play to make but I would probably call in that spot with AK as well.  Once there is no raise, Kathy has an easy call and Tony has an even easier check.  I suppose if Kathy read weakness she could have made a raise out of the small blind with suited semi-connectors but I like the call here as well — there’s too many hands that may have limped (QJ, J10, AJ, etc.) where she’d be in really bad shape.

After the flop has come out the hand pretty much plays itself.  I might have checked with middle pair if I were in Kathy’s position but I certainly can’t fault her for making a feeler bet to see where she was.  Tony’s obviously calling with two pair here really only being afraid of a flopped set of Threes.  I supposed KJ is a possibility here as well, but I simply cannot see getting away from bottom two pair in an un-raised three-way pot with three players remaining in a tournament.  Judy’s all in move here is aggressive but I actually like it.  I’d be thinking that she may have caught one of them with a Jack and the other one with some kind of a draw.  This is the one time that I can see Kathy getting away from her hand with middle pair and no draw, but she may have felt priced in at this point with so much money in the middle.  Like I said before Tony is pretty much committed unless he thinks someone flopped a set of Threes and at this point it would be a near impossible laydown.

With the third Jack coming on the turn there’s absolutely no way all of the money wouldn’t have gone in anyhow.  There is just simply no way that Judy with top two pair with an Ace kicker, Kathy with trip Jacks and Tony with a full house could ever get away from the hand at this point.  The fact that they got it all in on the flop might have been a bit soon for the reasons listed above but like I said, I can’t find too much fault.  Also, keep in mind that while I’d been standing there watching for while I wasn’t actually playing and I hadn’t picked up any tells that might have lead me to read the hand differently.

As always… That’s poker.  See you after the flop!