As poker players, we play because it stimulates and challenges our minds (amongst other reasons). In every tournament we play, we are faced with difficult decisions. Many hands throughout tournaments put us to the test, and attempting to play those hands optimally is part of what makes poker fun. However, our decisions are usually made fairly quickly. It's quite rare to exhaust our timebank making choices during a tournament. When we're forced to use those extra seconds, that's when the game gets really good. Despite the constant decisions over the period of a tournament, it can often feel like just going through the motions. It's those sweaty-palm, mind-grueling, heart-pounding choices we have to make every now and then which provide the rush, drawing us back to the tables.

Over my last week of tournament play, a couple spots put me to the ultimate test. These two hands occurred within minutes, on the same table, against the same player. The following hands take place six-handed, during the final two tables of the Full Tilt Poker $109 1r+1a. I'm sitting in nice shape, ranked in the top five of the remaining 12 or 13 players. With blinds at 800/1600 and a 200 ante, I have 83,422 chips (52 big blinds, or an M of 23 - plenty to play around with).

Full Tilt Poker Game #12570337955: $33,000 Guarantee (1r+1a) (92744139),Table 9 - 800/1600 Ante 200 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:04:38 ET - 2009/06/02
Seat 1: PeachyMer (65,540)
?Seat 2: joonklee (54,276)
?Seat 4: Wawa711 (33,858)
Seat 5: Tomif gsd (117,597)
Seat 7: Marinersheep (83,422)
Seat 9: themanrunning (89,152)
PeachyMer antes 200
joonklee antes 200
Wawa711 antes 200
Tomif gsd antes 200
Marinersheep antes 200
themanrunning antes 200
PeachyMer posts the small blind of 800
joonklee posts the big blind of 1,600
The button is in seat #9
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Marinersheep [Js Jd]
?Wawa711 folds
PeachyMer: jeez theman nice run
Tomif gsd raises to 4,000
themanrunning: ty
Marinersheep has 15 seconds left to act
Marinersheep ???

The chipleader of my table (and the tournament) makes a standard raise, two and a half times the big blind. Sitting with pocket Jacks, I have two options: call or re-raise. Think about which play you would make here.

?Marinersheep raises to 11,275

I decided to make what I would consider to be the standard play here, which is a re-raise. The amount I chose, 11,275, is a little less than three times the initial raise and is about the amount I'd re-raise with any hand in that spot.

?themanrunning folds
?PeachyMer raises to 65,340, and is all in
joonklee folds
Tomif gsd folds
Marinersheep has 15 seconds left to act
Marinersheep ???

After themanrunning's laydown, PeachyMer insta-shoved her stack. Once the initial raiser folded, I was faced with a fairly tough decision. I have JJ six-handed, which is a very strong hand. I'm usually not folding here. However, I'd made this play against Tomif one or two times prior to this hand. Both times Peachy mucked her hand without much thought. So, has she picked up on this pattern and decided to 4-bet light against me? Or does her range defeat my jacks? She shoved right away, on the final two tables, in a spot that she'd let pass her by a couple times already. With a hand like 99 or TT, would she shove without hesitation? AQ would take some thought; perhaps she's insta-shoving AQ suited. She's definitely shoving AK here, but she's also shoving QQ, KK and AA, which I am crushed against. So what would you do?

?Marinersheep folds

I chose to fold after some thought. After evaluating the possibilities in my head and taking my gut feeling into account, JJ just didn't seem good. Is it spewy to re-raise and fold JJ six-handed? It may be, but if she's holding QQ, KK or AA, I'm crippled. I felt that if I called with JJ, I would be closing my eyes and praying for her to flip up AK. It just wasn't worth the risk; I chose to lay the hand down and continue the tournament with a still very healthy stack.

Little did I know that just a few hands later, Peachy would wreak havoc on me yet again. This time I'm sitting with 67,472 chips (34 big blinds, or an M of 15).

Full Tilt Poker Game #12570449316: $33,000 Guarantee (1r+1a) (92744139), Table 9 - 1000/2000 Ante 250 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:11:14 ET - 2009/06/02
Seat 1: PeachyMer (98,164)
Seat 2: joonklee (50,951)
Seat 4: Wawa711 (40,908)
Seat 5: Tomif gsd (101,146)
Seat 7: Marinersheep (67,472)
Seat 9: themanrunning (85,204)
PeachyMer antes 250
joonklee antes 250
Wawa711 antes 250
Tomif gsd antes 250
Marinersheep antes 250
themanrunning antes 250
Wawa711 posts the small blind of 1,000
Tomif gsd posts the big blind of 2,000
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Marinersheep [As Qd]
Marinersheep has 15 seconds left to act
Marinersheep raises to 4,725
themanrunning folds
PeachyMer has 15 seconds left to act
PeachyMer calls 4,725
joonklee has 15 seconds left to act
joonklee calls 4,725
Wawa711 folds
Tomif gsd folds

We're still six-handed, and I pick up AQ under the gun. I make a standard raise, UTG+1 folds, and the action is on PeachyMer in the cut-off. After taking a little bit of time, she opted to call. She got a call behind, and we saw a flop three-way. What are the ranges of the two callers?

PeachyMer's range is tighter than the second caller's range. She could have plenty of hands, certainly, to play in position against her opponent (who happens to be me). joonklee's calling range is quite light, on the button behind a raiser and caller. It’s important not to discount the possibility of KK or AA in either range. That was in the back of my head going into the flop.

*** FLOP *** [Qh 4d 8s]

?Marinersheep ???

I just hit a thing of beauty with this flop. Q84 rainbow; I'm not scared of any draws. If someone has a set, good for them (and “good game” to me). So I have two options: I can make a continuation bet, or I can check. What do you think?

Marinersheep checks

I decided to check the flop. Three-handed, I like the idea of feigning weakness when I have a strong hand on such a safe board. The only card that really scares me on the turn is a king, so I decide to check and see if I can boggle my two opponents' minds. I'm loving my hand here and am excited to play this flop...

?PeachyMer bets 12,345
joonklee folds
Marinersheep ???

...until this. Remember those sneaking suspicions in my head about KK or AA in Peachy’s range? Now my radar is beeping and flashing in my brain. She called 4,725 preflop, then fires a seemingly strong bet on the flop. She should know that this is a dry board and it's unlikely to have hit joonklee or myself. It could have also hit her if she called preflop with 88, 44, QJ or KQ. Anyways, the bet looked strong to me. Taking into consideration she could just be trying to take the pot down on such a dry board, I had two options: smooth call and see a turn, or raise her bet.

?Marinersheep has 15 seconds left to act
Marinersheep calls 12,345

I decided to call and see the turn. By calling with no draws on the board, I figured Peachy could put me on an array of hands, from a suited 8, to 99-TT-JJ, to even AA. I wanted to see what she would do on the turn. As long as a king didn't come off, I thought I could gain enough information on the turn to make the right decision.

?*** TURN *** [Qh 4d 8s] [2d]
Marinersheep checks
PeachyMer has 15 seconds left to act
PeachyMer bets 25,678
Marinersheep has 15 seconds left to act
Marinersheep has requested TIME
themanrunning: ?
Marinersheep ???

The 2 is a very interesting turn card. Because I held the queen of diamonds, that took hands like KdQd and QdJd out of the equation for Peachy. If she had KQ or QJ, only fearing an ace on the river (or king, if she has QJ), then a check on the turn seems to make sense. She could control the pot, and if I check again on the river, could make a value bet into me. However, she more than doubles her bet size, which is about half my remaining stack. So what's your play?

?Marinersheep folds

I decided to lay the hand down. The sneaking suspicion of AA or KK preflop turned into a feeling that she had one of those two hands. When she fired a bet on the turn which commits me to the pot if I opted to call, I thought she had me beat. It looked to me like she wanted my commitment to the pot; if I check-raised, she would have almost certainly had to call given her bet size and chips already in the pot. Why would she make such a strong play with a hand she didn't think was good?

After timebanking from 80 seconds down to seven seconds, I figured she almost had to be a hand beating AQ, or complete air. The other possibility was that she put me on a hand holding an 8 or 99, TT or JJ. If she'd assigned me this range, she could fire that bet on the turn in an attempt to push me off such a hand. In the end, my sneaking suspicion about AA or KK turned into a strong feeling, and that's what I ended up going with.

So what should you consume from this article? First, you should always process every possibility and never limit your options. Secondly, it would be to avoid getting attached to your hands, no matter how good they look to you when you can only see your cards face-up. And thirdly, PreachyMer should suffer for making my tournament life a living hell, giving me an irregular heartbeat and making my armpits seem like that guy in the Axe Deodorant commercial during these hands.

Okay, I'm just kidding about Peachy. She owned my soul in these two hands, which leads me to my real third point: there's no shame in being pushed around by the same player, at least like I was in these two hands. I'd folded JJ six-handed to her and then folded AQ on a Q842 board to the same player. I could have just thought to myself, "Okay, you got me off of JJ once, no way I'm folding AQ to you this time". Instead, I put my vendetta to the side and made an incredibly difficult decision to the best of my ability. You should do the same.

Feel free to ask any questions, and I'll be sure to answer them the best I can.

-marinersheep

Recent Scores for marinersheep

<table width="90%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td><table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td>$10,968.76 </td><td valign="bottom"></td></tr></tbody></table> </td></tr><tr><td>$55 buy-in, $55+R NL Hold'em [$40,000 guaranteed] on PokerStars. 02/17/2009, 1 place for 10,968.76 </td></tr></tbody></table> <table width="90%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td><table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td valign="bottom"></td><td>$9,555.75 </td><td valign="bottom"></td></tr></tbody></table> </td></tr><tr><td>$150 buy-in, $50,000 Guarantee on FullTiltPoker. 02/04/2009, 2 place for 9,555.75 </td></tr></tbody></table> <table width="90%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td><table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td valign="bottom"></td><td>$22,960.00 </td><td valign="bottom"></td></tr></tbody></table> </td></tr><tr><td>$109 buy-in, $109+R NL Hold'em on PokerStars. 11/04/2008, 2 place for 22,960.00 </td></tr></tbody></table>