In this two part Texas Hold’em poker quiz you will be asked to react to the play of your opponents during a hand and you will be awarded points based on your answers. Try not to look at the answers as you work your way through the quiz. At the end of the quiz there will be a rating so you can assess how well you did (or didn’t) and if you fancy your chances of possibly becoming the next Phil Ivey.

You are playing on the first day of a big WPT event where 1st place pays $1.5 million dollars and your starting stack was $10,000. This is one of the most eagerly awaited poker tournaments in the poker calender. The blinds have increased to $100-$200 and you have increased your stack to $14,500 but that is still behind the table leader who has $21,000. The table breaks down as follows.

Seat 1: John Juanda (Top pro) $17,000
Seat 2: Online Qualifier $21,000
Seat 3: Online Qualifier $8,200
Seat 4: Empty
Seat 5: Unknown $6,000
Seat 6: You $14,500 (Button)
Seat 7: Tom Dwan (Top pro) $7,500 (Small Blind)
Seat 8: Gus Hansen (Top pro) $11,000 (Big Blind)
Seat 9: Online Qualifier $4,800

You are seated on the button with two top professional players to your immediate left. You peek at your cards and you see the As-Ad. The first two players to speak after the blinds both elect to fold their respective hands.

The inexperienced but very solid online poker qualifier in seat 2 raises to $800 and the other online qualifier in seat 3 calls the $800. During the course of the play so far today, these two qualifiers have been playing tight solid poker and have not been taking any chances. It is folded around to you on the button and you’re in the hot seat now, what is your play?

Answer:
Raise to about $3000 10 pts
Raise to more than $3000 8 pts
Raise all in 5 pts
Raise to $1600 2 pts
Call 1 pts
Fold 0 pts

You must re-raise here as two aces can be easily overtaken especially in a multi-way pot. You cannot afford to let the two top pro’s to your left in cheaply because they are likely to outplay you from the flop onwards. Raising to $1600 is a limit hold’em raise and is abysmal in no-limit. Re-raising all in is OK but your opponents are likely to fold and you are then left with only a very small pot.

Many players raise all-in in these situations because they either cannot stand the tension or do not want to play the hand from the flop onwards. Going all-in is showing your strength too soon and you are unlikely to run into a hand that is strong enough to call you. Raising an amount over $3000 although not as bad, may have the same effect but that is a better option than going all in.

Raising to about $3000 shows the ability to be able to play big tournament poker and this means not pushing the panic button prematurely. If your analysis went along these lines then award yourself 5 bonus points.

It is folded around to the two online qualifiers who both call the raise. There are three players in the pot and the pot stands at $9300. The respective stack sizes are as follows,

Seat 2: $18,000
Seat 3: $ 5,200
You: $11,500

The flop comes Qs-Qd-3c and both of the online qualifiers check, over to you…..answer, analysis and rest of the hand along with the scoring chart is in part two on Pokerdoom.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.