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The scene is the Ultimate Poker Challenge, at the Plaza,
Las Vegas. It’s very early on in the tournament
and Scott Fischman is under the gun. He limps, and four
or five other players limp behind him. I’m on
the button with A-10 offsuit. Now, when there are a
lot of limpers into a pot, you have to know whether
there is a chance that anyone in early position has
a big hand. The third limper we don’t worry about
– we know he doesn’t have aces, kings or
queens, because he would have raised. It’s the
first couple of guys you have to watch. Scott’s
an excellent player and he likes to play a lot of hands.
I noticed he’d been limping for five or six hands
in a row. So I decide to take a stab at the pot. I make
a big raise, 450 (the blinds are 25 and 50). So I still
have 3,500 left in chips, I’m not committed.
The small blind and big blind fold right away and Scott
immediately moves all in for 35,000. It’s folded
around to me.
So I’m thinking, “I know he’s thinking
I was trying to steal the pot. But he also doesn’t
know that I know he limps a lot.” I really didn’t
believe that he had a good hand. He was trying to push
me around. Most people, if they limp then re-raise,
they have aces or kings, but Scott is not a common player.
OK, there’s a chance he has a strong hand, but
it seems more likely that he’s just trying to
push me out, because he knows I’m a good player
and will lay down all kinds of hands. I’m faced
with a difficult decision.
I think about it for a while. I look long and hard
at Scott, and suddenly I get a tell, which, of course,
I will not divulge to the general public. It’s
not that he has a glaring tell, it’s just that,
even as professionals, we all make tiny mistakes occasionally,
which can be picked up only by the very receptive.
I didn’t want to call right away when I got the
tell. I didn’t want him to know I picked it up,
because then he might play it against me the next time
he wants me to call. But I’d made up my mind I
was going to call. So I waited a while, talked a little
bit of trash, and then announced: “I call.”
Scott turned over J-4. He was just shocked when he
saw my A- 10. He called me a donkey for weeks after
that. But, of course, the opposite is true. It was an
incredible play. Sure it would be stupid to call for
that amount of money with A-10, and generally A-10 should
be thrown in the muck. But if you find yourself in a
situation where you think you’re a 60% favorite,
then of course you have to call. You don’t want
a coin toss, though. You want to be sure that you’re
not calling an opponent with, say, two nines. You want
to be sure you have the hand dominated.
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