Last night in the 100k Deepstack tournament I witnessed a play made by an opponent while nearing the bubble. I really liked the play, although very debatable in nature and necessity, it was a well-thought out approach to the hand, except for one thing.

The action was folded around to the small blind, who had recently begun bullying the table and building his stack without having to show any hands. The big blind was the table chip leader who had acquired his chips earlier by calling a huge bet with the weaker hand but got there on the river.

The small blind flat called the 600/1200 blinds with a 36k stack.

The big blind then raised to 5600, with about 90k behind.

Without much hesitation the small blind shoved for 36 000.

After long consideration the big blind called and showed KQ offsuit. Small blind had T8 off.

So we had one of the largest pots of the tournament with a KQ and an 8T all in preflop, both playing for much larger amounts than they should have. They both missed and the K high won the hand.

I really liked the limp – reraise line the small blind took. However you can debate the bet size amount. 36k may have been too large of a raise. With a raise that big, you can probably rule out huge hands like Aces or Kings, and maybe even Queens. Eliminating the top three hands of the range means that the opponent can call with a number of hands that he may have otherwise folded if he thought he was up against a big hand.

Also, a large raise of 36k looks very defensive. This gives the appearance of protecting a made hand that is vulnerable, such as a low pocket pair, 44 to 88 for example. If you give the impression that you are on a small pocket pair, the chip leader in big blind may be inclined to call with such hands like KQ because he will think he is in a coin flip situation.

So bearing this in mind, perhaps instead of shoving for 36k, it may have been more appropriate to raise to something along the lines of 12k, and then shove the majority of flops. By taking this line instead, the small blind is able to get more value out of the big blind when the big blind calls the 12k and then folds to the 24k all-in on the flop. As well, the small blind is able to fold preflop if the big blind turns around and 4-bet shoves here.

Saying all this, I still like the thought-process that supported the play. The small blind has a mysterious image since he hasn’t shown down many hands. And by pursuing the table chip leader this way, he is sending a message to him that his blinds are not up for grabs, and even a flat call can be dangerous.

So now that we have discussed the line, why I like it and how it could be improved, I’ll highlight the biggest mistake made in the hand.

Earlier I mentioned the chip leader acquired his chips by putting them in behind in a large pot and catching up on the river.

The hand was AJ v KQ, and the board was 4 K Q A J with all the money going in on the turn. The AJ had 12 outs to take the lead on the river, so it wasn’t the worlds all time worst beat. So judging him on the way he won the hand would be a mistake to label him as a complete fish; which was what the small blind had said earlier. However what the small blind neglected to remember, or realize at the time was how the ENTIRE hand had played out.

On the flop of 4KQ, the KQ player had checked his two pair, and AJ had made an attempt to steal it by betting. KQ then check raised him. AJ called the check raise with only a gutshot here, and very little chance that an Ace would give him the best hand.

So from only looking at this one past hand in full, we have learned that our current table chip leader does not like to fold hands that he has committed any amount of money too, even if he is drawing to only 4 outs.

So now that we know this: our small blind’s crafty play, was an interesting play, it was well timed (as KQ is the exact type of hand that you would want to make a play like this against), but it was against the wrong opponent. Since with 5600 in the middle, there was very little chance that the big stack was going to fold any two cards he was holding, and very little chance the Ten high was the best hand.

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