Now this is a move you’ll see a lot when playing tournaments. It’s no coincedence it’s used a lot, because this move has a certain strength (if your stack is still large enough). It’s power is twofold: it can force your opponent to fold his (better) hand right there ánd if you get called you can beat your opponent by making your draw.

This play is perfectly demonstrated by the great Eli Elezra during an episode of Poker After Dark (S02E45). Watch it yourself (first hand):

So Eli flops the nut flushdraw and basically has only two moves left after Allan Cunningham’s continuation bet and Ivey’s raise: going all-in or fold. Now he choses the first option because there was an extra factor involved here: the fact that Phil Ivey was playing fairly aggressive during this tournament. Eli observed this correctly and in that way (with Ivey not even having toppair for example) it would be easier for Ivey to lay down his hand.

I played my second $5+.5 tournament and I got eliminated in 70th place. However, not much I could do about it, just lost two important pots.

Not a lot of spectacular things happened early on in the tournament. I played some hands fairly aggressive in late position and I won some and I lost some. Because seeing some hands still is the most interesting, I converted an important one for you:

I think KJ is a good hand to open a pot with, but on the flop I sensed something was wrong in this hand, thanks to one of the scarce tells you have in online poker: the time someone takes to make a decision. So I also checked but when the SB checked the turn again I was kinda convinced he didn’t have a 6, because of the draw on the board. However, in the end he happened to have this draw along WITH the 6. It was this same guy who would eliminate me a few moments later ;). Kind of the same situation preflop:

I flop top two pair and obviously bet the flop as I can represent a lot of even stronger hands. When the turn comes a diamond, I realise my chips go in anyway, also having the nut flushdraw now. Too bad for me, my opponent already had the flush… I calculated my odds afterwards with the poker calculator and I (only) had 25% in that spot, so exactly a three to one dog.