by Daniel Negreanu

The strategic thinking and analysis of making a big move with a hand early in a tournament

I recently played in a World Series of Poker Circuit event at Bally’s-Paris in Las Vegas and was involved in a hand that seemed pretty straightforward to me. Later, when I opened the message boards at http://www.fullcontactpoker.com/, I saw that many of the posters were questioning my play of the hand. It ended up becoming a pretty heated discussion, so I thought I’d use this column to share my thoughts on the hand.

We started with $10,000 in chips, and despite showing up about an hour late, I was able to get my chip count up to $11,400 by the time we hit the second round of blinds: $50-$100.

Everyone folded around to me, two spots from the button, and I raised with the 8 7 to $250. Now, this is a very standard play, but I did have a few people question what I was even doing in the pot with 8 high.

Well, in no-limit hold’em, hands like this play extremely well in deep-stacked situations. By making a small raise with the hand, you also add some texture and deception to your game that is crucial to becoming a successful player.

So, anyway, to my left, the current leader for the Card Player Player of the Year award, John Phan, called the raise. Then from the button, another top player and new father (congratulations!), Paul Phillips, called. The small blind folded, and yet another player in contention for the Player of the Year award, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, called from the big blind.

Strangely enough, I had all three of my opponents covered at this point. The flop came 10 9 5. I looked at that flop and thought to myself…. read rest of article at Card Player Magazine