A Little Gamble Goes a Long Way

Just the other night I took down first place in a large online poker tournament. Most times when I play no matter how well I do in a tournament I tend to remember the hands I did not play well. This time around I was particularly thankful for taking what I deemed as a calculated risk that ultimately put me in position to win the entire tournament four hours later.

The first two hours of the tournament I was pretty much cruising along. I had tripled up during the first hour when I hit a set of Jacks and got two players to push. From there I kind of maintained my stack and played a lot of hands. By the time the second break was over I had around $25k in chips and was just a little above average when I picked up [Q][9] in the small blind.

The flop came down: [Td][X][Jd] giving me an open ended straight draw.

At this point there were three players in the pot. I checked the hand knowing that I was going to re-raise whomever decided to bet the hand. I figured at worst they would call but most likely fold and put me on two pair. There were two small bets of $1600 a piece and the other player decided to fold. I thought about it for a moment and determined that both of my opponents had either missed the flop or were on a flush draw. I decided to get my chips in the middle and put them both to the test.

Both players called and I immediately figured I was in big trouble. However, I did have several outs! One opponent had flopped two pair and the other had flopped top pair. Thankfully neither of them had a flush draw as the turn was an [8d] and the river was a [X]. I took down a massive pot and cruised to the Final Table and polished off a six-and-a-half hour tournament for a very nice first place finish.

Ultimately, when you are playing large multi-table tournaments you have to make several tough decisions and the cards need to fall your way when you do. Even though my read on both players was incorrect I rarely get my chips in the middle without having outs. That's a big no no in my book. You also have to decided when you are going to gamble in tournaments like these as well. You simply do not get enough quality cards to sit back and wait for the nutz all the time. So pick your spots and profile your opponents. It will allow you to make calculated risks at the right times and ultimately build that monster stack we all dream about.