Learn from your mistakes
I made a huge mistake during the Run It Up Reno poker festival in May, one that cost me an estimated $19,000 in equity.
The $565-entry Run It Up Reno main event, hosted by Jason Somerville, attracted 391 entrants. With 13 players left, I had 25% of the chips in play. I was the favorite to capture the $46,410 first-place prize, but instead I busted out in ninth place for $2,050.
How did it happen? In Level 27 (25,000-50,000 blinds and an ante of 5,000), with nine players remaining, I raised to 125,000 from early position holding Q♥ Q♦ and received a call from Blake Vincent in middle position. The rest of the players folded, and the flop came down 8♦ 2♣ 5♣.
I bet 125,000, Vincent raised to 320,000, and I knew something was off.
I’d played with Vincent earlier in the tournament, and I didn’t peg him as the type to raise without a legitimate hand. Did he flop a set? Perhaps a flush draw? I called in the hope of gaining more information on the turn, which was the J♦.
After I checked, Vincent fired out a bet of 550,000. At this point, I knew he either held a set, a big flush draw or perhaps a hand like A♣ J♣. Somehow I got it in my mind that it was the latter, so I moved all in.
Vincent snap-called with the 8♣ 8♥ for a set. The 2♦ river failed to help to me, and just like that I was eliminated.
While the hand itself wasn’t terrible — bad beats happen — I should have folded the turn for one reason: chip distribution. You see, six of the other players at the final table had short stacks of less than 12 big blinds, and even if I folded, I still would have held the third-biggest stack, with 32 big blinds. Theoretically, this would have allowed me to survive longer, which in turn would have led to more prize money.
For instance, had I laddered up to third place, I would have won $21,500 — $19,450 more than I earned for finishing in ninth place. In tournament poker, “equity” refers to the amount of the prize pool that belongs to you based on chip stacks, even though you can’t just cash out.
Likewise, Independent Chip Model is a mathematical model used to calculate a player’s overall equity in a tournament by using stack sizes to determine where a player is likely to finish. Hint: Both come in handy when discussing the possible chopping of a prize pool.
Simply put, by playing this hand in the manner I did, I committed ICM suicide, terminated my tournament life and cost myself a lot of money.
Equity and ICM are heavy poker topics — too lengthy to cover extensively here — but I implore you to explore them on your own. In the meantime, be sure to learn from your mistakes. It’s the only way to improve.