I had a chat with the one-and-only Pierre about this hand after it busted me out, and I want some other opinions as well. Everyone put on your Andrew hat and let me have it, especially you, Andrew. That this happened 4 hours ago and I still remember the hand makes me think it’s worth a discussion.

$235 daily deep stack at Rio. Last hand of first level (25/50 blinds). Most stacks are near the starting 15K, I have 15,500. A new player is in Seat 9. This is his second hand, and he is in the big blind. I am in Seat 2 (UTG+2).

I’m dealt 99.

Two folds, and I open to 125. This is less than some opens in Level 1, but there’s already been one walk, and I want to be able to raise many hands pre. By only raising to 125, it lets me do this without bleeding away my stack. (I’m well aware of the strategy that says to raise more tightly pre-ante so your image lets you steal more blinds once antes start. Tables can break very quickly in the daily deep stack, so I discount this strategy for this specific tournament.)

There are 3 callers: MP1, CO, and the BB. The SB folded. 525 to the flop.

K98 rainbow.

The BB checks. I bet 225. I realize any of my V’s could have a straight draw, but I’m expecting a raise if they do, which I think is my first mistake. Unsophisticated players would just call with a straight draw. I don’t have a read on MP1 who sat down 10 minutes prior. The cutoff is a loose player splashing around in a lot of pots.

Anyway, all 3 V’s call. Even for a daily deep stack that’s a bit weird, but it could be because of my sizing. Anyway, 1425 to the turn.

The turn brings an offsuit 7. The board is now K987 with all 4 suits. I still have 99. (Do you hear the Thinking Poker voices when I write it that way? It was intentional.)

For some reason, I continue to think these 40% bets are a good idea with multiple people in the pot (because I wasn’t worried about flushes and never seem to expect people to have a straight). Despite the fact that I would expect at least one person to have a 10, because so many starting hands in their ranges will have a ten, I bet 625. The first 2 V’s call. The BB pauses, then check-raises to 6,000.

What I didn’t notice until JUST NOW as I type this is that this was a check-raise. Mentally I moved the dealer button to the dealer (because I rarely sit in seat 2 when I play live—I’m going to stop playing seat 4/5/6 in cash, that does it). So all of the following thought process erroneously comes from thinking this was a late-position raise.

Normally I fold here. It’s early. I have 14,575 behind if I fold. The daily deep stack structure sucks, but it’s not so awful I need to build a stack right now. But instead I think to myself, “What, does he have JT? Well, he could. But he could also have pair plus a straight draw, a set, two pair, etc.” And I think about how important it is to build a stack in a tournament whose structure will start having antes in an hour. If I don’t get another hand, I will be opening SnapShove on my phone and leaving it open for a while.

Calling makes no sense to me because if I don’t fill up on the river, am I going to call another bet? (Although, having 8K behind is still fine this early.) So I 3-bet shove to 15,200, and he snap calls with 56o. And when I look at how he played the hand, it makes sense. He had great odds pre and postflop, because I just gave him the implied odds he inferred by stacking off when his gutshot hit.

The river was a blank, and I was down to 375. Shoved Q8 and was out. But I got to visit the TPE booth for 45 minutes and shake @kevmath’s hand, so it wasn’t all bad.

Anyway, let me know your thoughts. I am having trouble centering myself because I have been knocked out of 3 tournaments for being too aggressive too early. I may be overreacting to previous years, when I played too passively and then had to play push-shove (without SnapShove, god forbid) until I busted. But 3 is also a small sample size.

It’s a journey. And I know I have to have these experiences to move on. But it sure sucks to experience these things when you play for 2 weeks and then go off for 50. Thanks, all.