FULL TILT POKER BLOG

Tales From the Bubble

Posted by jgreenspan | Filed under Uncategorized

We’re in the money! Assistant tournament director Jack Effel just announced the good new to 873 joyful players.

Prior to the final non-cash bust-outs, players were reacting – with varying degrees of skills – to the situation. Paul Wolfe, sitting on stack of roughly 75k (not exactly an intimidating sight) raised liberally, taking a couple of pots without content.

At table 56, a young man sat with all of 6k. He calculated that he could make it through ten hands of play, so he set about folding, hoping to hear that enough people busted for him to make the money.

“What are you looking at your cards,” Wolfe asked him. “You’d fold Aces there.” Wolfe was right. The player had almost nothing to gain by playing a hand, and he could fold his way into a 16,000 pay day.

After 10 hands, four players still needed to bust before the money.The young man was forced to go all-in for less than the big blind. No one raised, and he ended up taking his hand up against the small blind, who had 6-9. The man managed to stay alive, when his Jack-high took the pot. He folded his way through the next round and cashed.

At Wolfe’s table, a huge confrontation went down between a big stack, and a player on a mid-sized stack. The big stack raised in MP and it was folded around to the mid-stack player in the big blind. The flop cam Ah-Td-3d, and the big blind bet out 20k (more than 1/4 of his stack). The big stack then announced “all in.”

The big blind went into the tank, looking stricken. His hand seemed clear; he must have had A-K. But the big stack could have had a variety of hands. Give the proximity to the bubble, the big stack could have simply been pushing the smaller stack around. He could have had diamonds, or maybe even a worse Ace.

I discussed the hands with Wolfe and others at the table and we concluded that there was no way the blind could call. There was too much to lose and too little to gain. Well, he called, exclaiming, “tell me I’m good,” and showing A-K. The big stack showed A-T for two pair. The turn was an Ace and the river a King. The man made a horrid call, but is now sitting with a very healthy stack.

Wolfe loved the confrontation. The big stack opponent gave a clear physical tell that he picked up on. He’ll be able to use that down the road.

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