Chapter IV and a half: How Early Man beat Rita Raiser with A5

I may have beaten KK to death, but I have alluded to this poker story, and there are some more crucial lessons concerning early play. Inevitably, someone will have made a critical mistake and lost 1/2 their chips having to fold a tasty draw, or, as another example, getting cute with KK or QQ only to have the turn card spike the A.

Holding KK early and getting paid is a tournament defining event which lifts you high above the average chip stack, and the prospect of reeling in the short stack with it is compelling.

A short stack cannot afford to draw to the river, as any bigger stack will push a limper out preflop and a weak raise caller out postflop. Our short Early Man (it seems he always gets his hands in early position) now needs to play his hands and have them pay off, and any pot will do (as Rita Raiser played after this disaster hand)

Now anyone who plays online, and has raised and reraised and called preflop to the roof with KK and says he or she has not let out a huge groan seeing that A hit the board is a bad bluffer, and if he or she comes raising at me, I'll put y'all all-in y'all.

Now try dealing with that disappointment live.

Now try getting away from your heavily committed, both emotionally and financially, garbage 2nd pair.

In this hand, desperate Early Man puts out a small raise UTG with his A5 spades. Rita, hoping to get her caller, makes a moderate raise designed to keep him in but push everyone else along. We all oblige accordingly. Lets say both have committed 500 to the pot

The flop is A - 7- crappier than 7 (but not a 5). There might have been one spade, maybe two, but probably one.

Early Man has his flaws but is a good player. He makes a probe bet, 600. Rita Raiser, of course, raises, but she will not yet be known for her all-in post flop bets....she is reeling-in, remember., trying to build a big pot. The raise is to about 1400, and Early Man calls, reasonably quickly, but not after a look over to Rita...who is losing steam.

He checks the turn which is a small spade. This is critical: Rita bets small: 700, and appears reluctant to call EM's minraise.

The river is no help to anyone, and EM checks, but he only has 1200 chips and the pot has risen to about 7000. When Rita puts him all in, he was heavily pot committed to A5, and, like JJ before them, had to make the call. He is better off walking away than leaving a pair of aces and a pot of 7000 behind.

Ultimately, I don't think this hand was a serious of mistakes by both: Rita failed to put EM on an A, she said, but EM, short stacked, needed to both gamble and play well, and I think he buckled down and put his lady overplaying a busted PP.

Perhaps he smelled the same fear he had experienced himself holding KK and deciding whether it was good for all his chips....so much of reading an opponent is gut. Learn to listen to that gut.

Okay, I had previously segued with talk about battles of the blinds. This is a double segue, talking about overplaying busted PPs. I will combine the two in Chapter Five: Early Middle Play: small PP's and the Blinds.