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People love to ask me my opinion on hands that they went broke with in Multi Table Tournaments.

- Would I have gone broke in this situation? Would I have played the hand the same as they did?

In MTT play, there will always be hands that you will bust with. If you are not playing hands out of fear of busting, then you aren't maximizing your full potential.

So many times, my answers to the aforementioned questions are:

- Yes, I would have gone broke, but no, I would not have played the hand the same way they did.

This can be confusing for many people. You might ask, "Jeff, if you would have gone broke in this situation, why does it matter that you would have played the hand differently? Either way, you are out of the tournament. Right?" The answer is very simple. If I am going to go broke in certain tournament situations, then I need to make sure that in similar situations where my hand is best, that I am getting maximum value out of the hand.

I am going to try to create a common hand scenario that we run into frequently in MTT play, and I'll discuss how I play in this situation.  Let's assume that we have just been moved to this table and had never played a hand before with "Villain."

Blinds 100,200 with 25 ante.

Seat 1. Player A (9,000 in chips)
Seat 2. Player B (4,000 in chips)
Seat 3. Player C (1,500 in chips)
Seat 5. Player D (800 in chips)
Seat 6. Hero (6,000 in chips)
Seat 7. Player E (1,500 in chips)
Seat 8. Player F (3,000 in chips)
Seat 9. Villain (7,000 in chips)

All players post ante. Player G posts small blind for 100. Villain posts big blind for 200.

Hero is dealt KQ.

Player A folds.
Player B folds.
Player C folds.
Player D folds.
Hero raises to 600
Player E folds.
Player F folds,
Villain calls 400.

Flop K,8,4.

Villain Checks.
Hero Bets 1,000.
Villain calls 1,000.

This is a very common situation that we find ourselves in during MTT play. Preflop, we raised from the cutoff with what seems to be a fairly decent hand in late position. The unknown villain calls the raise out of position, and we have very limited insight into the range of his/her holdings. The villain could be doing any one of many things, including: defending their blind, trapping with a premium hand, set mining with a pocket pair, playing suited connectors, or trying to hit a big flop with any two cards.

After the flop is dealt and the villain check-calls our bet out of position, this should send warning signals off in our head. The check-call on a rainbow flop can mean a wide variety things, but a big hand becomes a distinct possibility, considering the tendency of many players to check-call big hands---especially sets on rainbow flops.

Turn 2.
Villain checks.

At this point, we believe that we are probably best, and yet we need to determine the optimal line. The pot is now about 3,500, and we have 4,400 chips behind us. Many beginning players will make a very large bet here, either pot size or a shove. When you question them as to why they made that bet, the most common response is, "Well, I didn't want to get outdrawn." The issue with such a bet is that you are normally only going to get called with a better hand. This bet will drive out hands such as KJ, K10, K9, 89, 78, A8, JJ, 1010, 99, 77, and A high, but it will immediately be called by hands such as 88, 44, 22, and AK. Any reasonable size bet at this point in the hand basically pot commits us, so I believe that the optimal line is for us to check the turn.

Some may still ask, "Aren't you scared that you will get rivered?" Let's look at some of the possible scenarios where we could be trumped on the river by a lesser hand. With JJ, 1010, 99, or 77, the villain is drawing to 2 out of 46 outs to better us, and with hands such as KJ, K10, K9, and A high, the Villain is drawing to 3 out of 46 outs to better us, and with hands such as 89, 78, and A8, the villain is drawing to 5 of 46 outs to trump us. I don't know about you, but I will take those odds any day.

Hero checks.

One of the biggest things that checking behind on the turn does is signal the villain that we are weak, and that our flop bet was quite possibly a continuation bet with air. This opens the door for the villain to bluff or mistakenly value bet the river with a lesser hand. At this point, against an unknown villain, we want to call their lead on just about any river to take full advantage of the image that we created for ourselves on the turn. If it's checked to us on the river, we will also have a higher probability of getting our value bet called, because of this perception of weakness.

I truly believe in betting with a purpose. Always ask yourself why you are betting. Are you betting out of fear or are you betting for value? Many times there is just far more justification for checking behind instead of betting. Try it, and see how much more value you start getting out of your hands.