I am a firm believer in the theory that one learns more from hands that they misplayed and lost than they do from hands which they played correctly and won. In the following piece, I am going to take you through a hand that I played against BeL0WaB0Ve with 16 people left in the Stars $55 rebuy. I plan to take you through my thought process, my actions, and what I learned from the hand itself.
Before I take you through the actual hand, I think it’s important to analyze the opposing player and the prior activities that led to this confrontation.
While at a particular table, MTT players should be processing information about their opponents at the table, so that they have a good feel for their opposition before any key hand is dealt. I think that one of the biggest differences between a micro limit MTT player and a high stakes MTT player is the ability of the higher stakes player to leverage their past and current experiences with their opponents to determine optimal strategy on any given hand.
Lets start off with what I know about BeL0W. Having not had the opportunity to play many hands with him, I had limited first hand knowledge of his game until about 4 months ago, when we must have somehow happened upon the same playing schedule. Over this period of time, we have played quite a few tables together, which has allowed me to get a better feel for his game and make a number of assumptions and conclusions concerning his playing style.
The first thing that really impressed me about BeL0W was his memory and perception. Early on, he made some pinpoint comments to me about my game and table image, which really impressed me, especially considering our limited time together. This was my initial experience of seeing, first hand, how BeL0W leverages these capabilities to gain a significant advantage at the tables. As I continued to play with him further, I came to the conclusion that his brain not only picks up on general player styles and images; it also acts as a huge database, constantly collecting information on particular player tendencies and betting patterns, which in turn empowers him to make the extremely difficult decisions that we are so used to seeing.
In terms of actual play, what else do I know about BeL0W? BeL0W is a very laggy player, but he really doesn’t seem to bluff as much as people would like to think. He loves to play pots in position and has a propensity to play hands for max value by either checking behind or calling, allowing the other player to build the pot for him. The bluffs that I have seen him make tend to be drawing type hands where he has outs to back his play. The last thing that I have witnessed in my play with BeL0W that gets very little attention is his ability to make huge lay downs.
What does BeL0W think about me? This is a very important question. If one is going to analyze the image and playing style of a particular opponent, they definitely need to take into account the opposition’s perception of themself, as this carries a great deal of weight in the way that the opposition will choose to approach them. In my mind, I believe that BeL0W thinks that I am very tight, ranging somewhere between weak tight and tight aggressive. While I do consider myself a pretty big “tighty,” I think that BeL0W might give me credit for being just a little bit tighter than I actually am. This is probably due to the fact that many times, BeL0W’s aggressive style seems to rub off on the rest of the table, which leads me to tighten up even further to counteract the aggressive style of my opponents.
Before analyzing the hand in question, I think that it is important to take into account past hands from both a long and short term perspective.
Past History of Play Together…
In the past, BeL0W and I did not play many big hands against each other. For some reason, we tended to stay out of each other’s way, and the large hands that we were involved in were against other opponents at the table. The most important situation that we encountered came about in the Stars $200 Rebuy, roughly three months ago. We were down to 2 tables when the following scenario presented itself. The UTG player with an M of about 4.5 open shoved. The action folded to me in middle position, where with an M of about 8, I reshoved with QQ. The action then folded to BeL0W in the big blind, who had an M of about 10. He proceeded to use a good portion of his time bank before finally deciding to fold his hand. After my QQ held over A9, I asked BeL0W what he folded, wanting to verify that my assumption of AK was correct. BeL0W replied with the simple answer of “KK.” At that point, I told him that he was full of it, to which he responded, “I could have sworn you had AA there, and you are sooooo tight. I have been knocked out of 2 majors today with AA vs. KK, and I really thought you had AA there.” This particular hand and BeL0W’s comments reinforced many of my personal intuitions that I had stated above, concerning his memory, perception, and ability to make big laydowns.
Hands played together in the Tourney in Question….
In the tourney in question, BeL0W and I sat together for the majority of the second half of the tournament. For some reason though, BeL0W seemed much more willing to play back at me in certain spots, where he had not done so in the past. Even though I was loosing small pots to him, I was able to keep an average stack as he raced out to the chip lead. With about 20 left, I was able to double through him when my KK held vs. his AQ all in pre-flop. He was so far ahead of the field that even with this setback, he still kept the chip lead, but the dynamics of the table changed a bit, with this hand propelling me into the top 5.
About 10 hands later, the following cards were dealt…
PokerStars Game #6687579921: Tournament #33698403, $50+$5 Hold’em No Limit –
Level XIV (1500/3000) – 2006/10/19 – 02:28:46 (ET)
Table ‘33698403 3’ 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: JEFFRAY829 (41820 in chips)
Seat 2: Like7 (187285 in chips)
Seat 3: mman_status (67864 in chips)
Seat 4: Powell4400 (30084 in chips)
Seat 5: BeL0WaB0Ve (233928 in chips)
Seat 6: mgpferreira (55691 in chips)
Seat 8: jeffbeesdat (135103 in chips)
Seat 9: letsplay14me (37917 in chips)
JEFFRAY829: posts the ante 150
Like7: posts the ante 150
mman_status: posts the ante 150
Powell4400: posts the ante 150
BeL0WaB0Ve: posts the ante 150
mgpferreira: posts the ante 150
jeffbeesdat: posts the ante 150
letsplay14me: posts the ante 150
jeffbeesdat: posts small blind 1500
letsplay14me: posts big blind 3000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to jeffbeesdat [Qc Ad]
JEFFRAY829: folds
Like7: folds
mman_status: folds
Powell4400: folds
BeL0WaB0Ve: raises 5228 to 8228
mgpferreira: folds
As noted in the HH above, BeL0W opened the pot for a little bit less than 3X the BB from the cutoff position. After the button folded, it was now my turn to respond to his late-position raise. My 3 options here were to fold, call, or raise. Since BeL0W was most likely playing a very wide range of hands in this spot, I definitely did not think that folding was a good option. Calling here was also a bad option, because by calling out of position, I would be leaving myself at the mercy of the flop. I would have a little less than 1 out of 3 chance of hitting the flop, and even hitting the flop would not guarantee me high pair or the best hand. Since BeL0W’s range here was very wide, since I was out of position, and since it was highly unlikely that the BB would wake up with the type of hand that could dominate mine (AA, KK, QQ, or AK), re-raising seemed to be the best option.
Now here is where I made a huge mistake, digging myself a hole that would prove to be very difficult to escape.
jeffbeesdat: raises 12772 to 21000
letsplay14me: folds
This is a horrible raise in this situation. I was giving a super laggy player, a postflop expert, almost 3 to 1 pot odds, calling 12,772 at a pot of 33,428. Being that BeL0W was in position, I believe that this is a call that he makes with almost any 2 cards. Someone once did a study that showed that on any given hand, the player in position takes down the pot 70% of the time, and in BeL0W’s case, I believe that this number is probably significantly higher, since he has more postflop experience than just about any other MTT player at this level.
If I knew that this was a bad amount to re-raise, why did I proceed to go through with this bet? Having a demanding job and playing competitive tourneys sometimes takes its course on me from a fatigue perspective, which in certain cases results in “mathematical brainfarts.” Honestly, I would like to assign all blame to fatigue, but the more that I think back on it, I believe that subconsciously I wanted to play a small pot at this stage of the tourney, and this may have somehow influenced this poor re-raise.
BeL0WaB0Ve: calls 12772
As noted and expected, BeL0W called the raise. I realized the second my re-raise hit the table that I had really botched this hand preflop, but unfortunately I could not go back, so I had to play this hand forward.
*** FLOP *** [8h Kh 9c]
Since my preflop raise screamed strength, and drawing back on our past play together, I decided that a continuation bet was the optimal line, and hopefully he would read me for Aces.
jeffbeesdat: bets 27000
BeL0WaB0Ve: calls 27000
After BeL0W called this raise, I knew that I was in trouble. I never felt him out preflop by putting him to a tough decision, and therefore his range of starting hands could be just about anything. Drawing on past experience, I came to the following (very shaky) conclusion:
I really didn’t think that he would float this flop with air vs. a tighty such as myself. Knowing that he loves to either check behind or just call in position with a pair, top pair, or 2 pair, gaining max value out of hand rather than betting the other player out, I thought that it was very possible that he had a hand like Kx, 2 pair, or something like 10 10. In terms of potential drawing hands, J 10 or two hearts were also possible, but I did not think it to be very probable. I just couldn’t see him calling 27,000 at a 73,210 pot when he would only be guaranteed to see the turn, knowing that there was a possibility that I would shove and not let him see the river. The implied odds here weren’t very good as well, seeing as I only had about 87,000 behind me, which denied him a good risk/reward situation if he did hit a draw. With this information and my perception of his past play, I really thought that if he did have a drawing hand, he would be much more likely to shove here, rather than calling. This allowed me to eliminate at least a few hands, and I came to the very shaky and vague conclusion that he probably had a hand like K,Q, K,J, K,10, 10,9, K,9, 8,9, or 10,10. Either way, at this point I really felt that I was behind in this hand, and I was just waiting to check/fold the turn.
*** TURN *** [8h Kh 9c] 
Now things got pretty interesting. The Ace on the turn gave me top pair and second kicker, but I still did not have a good idea of BeL0W’s holdings… The board was very draw heavy at this point, but I had previously eliminated a draw as a possibility on the flop, and I did not want to re-evaluate the situation and add further confusion to my thought process. At this point, even though 2 pair was a huge possibility in my mind, I was about 55% sure that my hand was good here. My dilemma here was that I was running out of options. I only had 87,000 left in chips, and if I feared that if I shoved, I was only going to get called by a better hand, so I decided to check, and, as noted, BeL0W checked behind me.
*** RIVER *** [8h Kh 9c Ac] 
When I saw the river, I was still about 55% sure that I had the best hand, and I decided that I would check, with the intention of calling his bluff/value bet…
jeffbeesdat: checks
BeL0WaB0Ve: bets 185778 and is all-in
Even though I had planned to check/call a bet here, I still had a very tough decision to make. If I called here and lost, I would be out of the tourney. If I called here and won, I would be the chip leader with a monstrous stack. If I folded, I would still be left with an above average stack of about 87,000. While I do not think that these possibilities should be the determining factors for decision making within hands, I do think that they are important enough to note and consider.
As for the hand itself, the 4 of clubs was definitely a scare card, as it put a flush possibility on this board. Seeing as I still did not have a good idea of BeL0W’s holdings, I wanted to keep things as simple as possible. I decided to focus on the last card and what that meant to the board. Could BeL0W have really called the 27,000 on the flop with a runner, runner club draw? Not very likely. Would he shove here with a hand like 89 or K9? I really didn’t think so. Knowing that I am a tight player and am very capable of a big laydown, could he be representing a club and really have a hand like 10 10 or K 10. I thought that this was very possible, so I went ahead and made the call.
jeffbeesdat: calls 86953 and is all-in
*** SHOW DOWN ***
BeL0WaB0Ve: shows [Kc Jc] (a flush, Ace high)
jeffbeesdat: shows [Qc Ad] (a pair of Aces)
jeffbeesdat said, “gla”
BeL0WaB0Ve collected 274106 from pot
As noted, I lost this hand and finished 16th in the tourney. I was very disappointed with my play here, but the one good thing about bad plays is that there is usually a lot to be learned or re-learned from them.
The biggest mistake that I made in this hand was pricing BeL0W in preflop. Playing against a tricky, laggy player from out of position in a hand is just a losing proposition. Instead of raising to 21K, I think that a much better raise would have been somewhere between 28K and 32K. ***Note I probably don’t want to raise any more than 32K, because BeL0W may have sensed this as a sign of weakness and re-shoved, leaving me with a very difficult decision.
In terms of the flop, I think my play was ok, but my play on the turn was pretty bad. As noted before, I did not want to shove 87K because I feared that I would only be called by a better hand. I really don’t think that this line of reasoning is applicable when there is already $100K in the pot. At that point, if I had the slightest inclination that my hand is good, I believe that I needed to be pushing all-in, considering the potential draws on the board. I should have also done a better job of re-evaluating BeL0W’s potential holdings on both the turn and the river.
In my opinion, my call on the river wasn’t too bad, even though I should have never put myself in that position from the start. I could have considered making a blocker bet here, but I really don’t think that I had enough chips to make any bet on the river besides a push.
It is important to keep things in perspective and realize that even though this was a very significant hand in this particular tournament, it is only one hand. In the overall scheme of MTT play, the memory, perception, and table image capabilities are much more important than the hand itself, because one can use these tools on a regular basis to escalate their game.
For those who were not blessed with the best memory, I would definitely suggest using mnemonic devices or extensive note taking to counteract this deficiency. In terms of perception, I think that this is more of a “learned trait” that anyone can obtain through proper focus and concentration. Once these traits are mastered, it is important to consistently analyze the both the table images of your opponents and their perception of you.