TOC Day 3: The Kevin Song Hand

On the flop of AdKhTh, Kevin bet $20,000 into a $159,000 pot. I was visibly taken aback. I had not yet seen him make such a dramatic underbet, and I felt he would have bet more if he were simply trying to take the pot — clearly, he wanted me to call.

I took some time to ponder: Had he flopped the straight? Or was he trapping me with pocket aces or pocket kings? There was some chance he had AK or pocket tens, although he probably would have put in a re-raise before the flop with those holdings. And QJ was of course an unpleasant possibility.

I did not like the bet very much because of what it represented (it is easy to go bust in no-limit if you get married to top and bottom pair) but because it was so small, I almost had to call. My plan at this point was simply to call him down as long as he kept making relatively small bets. I was counting on the effect of both of us having large stacks (the two of us and Josh Arieh were the chip leaders).

With a big stack, you of course want to play aggressively to apply pressure on the short stacks. However you typically avoid confrontations with the other big stacks because doing so is potentially quite costly. By simply calling him down, I would of course win if I held or drew to the best hand, and if I was behind or got outdrawn, I would lose some chips but not a crippling amount. If he bet a large amount, he probably had the goods and I could safely fold, since he wouldn't want to get too deeply involved with another big stack without a premium hand.

The turn was a blank, the 3s. Kevin again made an underbet of only $60,000. I'm not entirely sure why, but at this point I abandoned the plan I made on the flop. The primary factor was that the manner in which he hesitated before calling my pre-flop raise suggested to me that he had a marginal hand which he in fact considered folding before the flop. I can't explain it exactly, but it just seemed that the way he hesitated was different than it would have been had he been trapping me with aces or kings.

Also he had of course seen my puzzlement and pause for thought on the flop, so he might have just been continuing a bluff/semi-bluff. And if he did have a draw, I had to make him pay for it right there. So, I screwed up my courage and indicated I was moving all-in (a bet of $306,000 as reported by Andy Glazer). If he turned out to have aces, well, that's poker. If he had kings or tens, I had two outs, and I had 4 outs against QJ (or threes, but that seemed rather unlikely).

Kevin called fairly quickly, which did not please me until he turned over his hand: KcTc! I had been playing fairly aggressively, so he must have thought there was a sufficient chance that I was overplaying an ace, or that I had perhaps an ace and a heart draw/straight draw, such that he should call.

Fortunately a harmless deuce fell on the river. We had started the hand almost even in chips so it took the dealer and floormen a while to count down the two stacks, but when the smoke cleared, I had him covered — Kevin was eliminated and I now had nearly a third of the chips in play with 5 players left.

This was the key hand for me at the final table. Of course, some of the later hands I played heads-up with Alan were more significant tournament-wise since they determined first and second place; however this battle with Kevin propelled me into the chip lead and let me take it easy, relatively speaking, until my showdown with Alan.

Winning the TOC was a tremendous thrill for me, and I would like to thank everyone who made it possible, especially Mike Sexton, Chuck Humphrey, and TOCPoker, Inc., and the dealers, floor, and staff at the Orleans. Thanks also to those who supported me in person or over the Internet, and special thanks to Bill, JP, Stephen, and Scott for their help with my poker development.