After the good hand against Kido and the bad hand against Jon, I was at about 40k in chips. I doubled up when I hit a set against a weaker player who overplayed his Queens, and after an hour was sitting at 100k in chips. My table was stacked though, as the average was 40k, but my table had 8 players over that. A Danish kid came to our table with about 80k in chips, and I could tell I had played him on the internet.

I was told his name was Mark, but I might be mistaken. He turned out to be one of the best players I played throughout the tournament. We really hadn’t played too many hands together until this big one came up…

I pick up Kings in Middle Position. It folds to Mark on the button, who calls my 4x BB raise. The blinds fold and its heads up. The flop comes down 10 5 2, with two spades. Seemingly a great flop for my hand. I lead out about ¾ of the pot to look like I missed. He raises 10k on top of me. I think about what he could have. What would he make this reraise with? Probably not a dry 10, as he had position and would probably just call. Maybe a big draw, like 3 4 of spades or A10 of spades for a pair and a flush drawe. Two pair seemed very unlikely as 2 5 would be the only hand he would have. He could also just be betting I had nothing and could take the pot right there with a mid pocket pair. He could also have AA (but I think he would have reraised preflop with this). JJ is also a good guess. Almost every hand I could think of short of a set I was ahead of, I decided to reraise since I was out of position and see what happened.

I reraised to 27k. I thought this was a good number, as he wouldn’t want to go much further with a bluff or weak holding, which I was fine with being out of position and all. He took about five minutes and made the call. This worried me, but I still had him I thought. The turn was a 5 off suit. I bet out small like 18k, leaving me about 45k behind. He thought for a while, before pushing all in. What have I walked into? That 5 couldn’t have helped him, because the 5 on the flop was a spade, so he couldn’t have something like 5 6 of spades. Would he really make this raise with a hand I was beating? I thought for about 10 minutes, as it was the biggest pot at our table so far. I finally decided he had flopped a set and folded. I was pleased to talk to him later in the night and he told me he had 22, for the bottom full house. I dodged a bullet and was able to build my stack back up to 82k before the night closed out. It was a pretty big laydown on a non threatening board, and I don’t think I would have made it if it was online. I sensed a lot of strength from looking at him and just nothing about the hand felt right. I was proud of the laydown, event thought it turned out to be a little late. Another player told me he thought I played it wrong on the flop, but after reviewing the hand, I disagree. With such a non- threatening board and being in position, he could be reraising with a very wide range of hands. I had to define my hand right there with a raise either on the flop or the turn. I might have been better off to call then lead out the turn after a blank hit, but hindsight is 20/20.

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