Controversial fold?
So on new years I went to a friends poker tournament it was 4 tables so about 40 players. I was up and down up and down most of the day, we were now down to 2 tables about 16 players left, the blinds were 500/1000, and I was sitting on about 50k in chips. It folds to me on the button I look down and see 10s 10h, so I raise to 2500, The VILLAIN in the small blinds re-raises all in for about 27k, now this player is a good player and very aggressive player, I won't say her name here but it stars with NAN and ends with CY..... LOL! Ok so here it is she has pushed all in if I call and lose I still have 13K but I would be short, If i win Im chip leader! What to do? Well I start thinking about the hand range she would be making this play with, taking into account that she knows that on the button I could raise any two cards, she knows I am aggressive, but she also knows I'm not going to make stupid mistakes. Tough one on one hand my hand is supposed to be way ahead of her range in this spot so I should call right? I mean there are only 4 pair that have me crushed and a few combination of hands that Im racing against, everything else I am a favorite so I should call right? So by now I have taken a few minutes to decided and I should call right? Well I decide to fold and show face up. WHAT? YOU FOOL! A very good friend of mine "NAT" sitting next to her basically calls me out and says its the worst play ever, and most of the time I would agree with him in this stage of the tournament. But and a big but! My decision was not based on fear or losing or anything like that. It was based on my assessment of the situation, I finally decided that Nancy wasn't going to make a bonehead play here, she still had fighting chips, she is aggressive but not dumb, looking back at the table I realized that there were many "easier" spots to take advantage and I didn't have to gamble on a huge coin flip just yet. I can still chip up outplaying the weaker players. I know if I were online this was an insta-call but in this situation I felt like I could just fold and not play "huge variance poker" at least not yet. Once I decided that I was going to fold I also decided I was going to show the hand to advertise that "I'm playing tight" or "making mistakes" and knowing that I would now have to take into account the fact that people are going to try and run over me because of it. If you know my game that is easier said than done! Hell Nancy even said that when people show that fold there she will re-raise them every time after that, LOL! I kept playing and started taking advantage of the weaker players and chipping up and I went on to win the tournament!
Was it the correct fold? Well I'm pretty sure that equity wise in that specific hand it was not the correct fold, but I feel that sometimes people who play straight equity based or math based poker forget to think about the bigger picture. What I mean to say is that if the math of that one hand says call should you always call? I don't know how to do the math of the entire tournament, but there should be a way, Poker tournaments are not about one hand they are a series of hands, so just because the math of one hand says call, where is the math of the entire tournament?
I find that poker tournaments are not pure math games, if they were why would we play? There are so many factors to take into account in a tournament, am I better than my table? Do I have to gamble it up because my table is super strong? finding the rhythm of a poker game is very important to me, rhythm in poker whats that? well its much like running good or running bad, they are anomalies in the math but they happen, every GAME has a rhythm, and eb and flow and to find that really helps you win the game.
Let the comments begin!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!
ps. Hey Dan...... Scoreboard! LOL!
