When faced with difficult plays in poker, it can make you or break you. The bigger the pot the higher the difficulty your decisions will be unless you flopped the nuts of course. Some of these decisions can make you want to hit the bottle soon after if you judge incorrectly. Why not play safe early on?
When holding an average hand in tournament poker play, you want to make sure the size of the pot is kept in check until you make your hand. You are better off calling versus betting or raising on nice pairs, when there is a draw heavy board. Let the play come to you in case you are out kicked or crushed, when you may not even know it. A difficult decision for all your chips can be a disaster. You are better off not even playing the hand then getting into a sticky situation.
An example of this hand would be early in a tournament and your in the High Jack position and you decide to raise and the button calls. You don’t have position which is the first thing you need to think about. You are holding K-Q off-suit. Flop comes Q-10-3 with two spades. Right away there are some draws on the board and we have top pair with a decent size kicker. You are first to act and you decide to check. The button puts in a solid bet. You decide to call. Your opponent most likely thinks you are on a bigger hand at this point. You decide to check again after a 5 of diamonds comes on the turn. You are still holding top pair. By checking again you avoid being raised for most or all of your stack. You call the the pretty sizable bet the button makes. Your opponent is drawing big or may have two pair or a small set. The river comes 8 of hearts meaning all draws are broken.
You decide to check again just to make sure and keep everything in line. You have a nice hand at this point, but early on you don’t need to force it. The Button checks and mucks. In this case you take down the small pot with a top pair. Anything could have happened. It is sometimes better to sit back and play safe then getting over aggressive and being crippled or knocked out early in a poker tournament.
Avoiding sticky situations is not always easy to do, but when you do, the bottle stays on the shelf.
