How much do you need to raise? …

Concept from WSOP Superstars Invitational

I noticed an interesting hand from the WSOP Superstars Invitational, in which the “top 10” players in the World were invited to a winner take all 2 million dollar tournament. There were 7 players left in the event, and the blinds were 5k 10k with a 1k ante. These blinds sound high, but all players began with 200k in chips, so it wasn’t that crazy.

In the hand in question, Daniel Negreanu opened for 30k UTG leaving himself with 100k more. Annie Duke was next to act with TT. She has about 300k in chips. The rest of the field have anywhere from 200k-500k in chips. What should she do?

A – Call
B – Raise to 90K
C – Raise to 130K (to put Negreanu allin)
D – Raise all-in
E – Fold

Choice A and E somehow seem ridiculous to me, Daniel Negreanu does not need a huge hand to raise there. I think she needs to raise and the question is how much to raise? I think that one amount is correct and the others are less accurate.

Raising all-in is a bit unnecessary, as if someone has AA or KK behind you, they aren’t going anywhere. You are basically risking all your chips when a lower amount would do the same job. This raise has nothing to gain over raising to 90 or 130k

So this leaves choices B and C. Choice C seems like a natural choice, because by raising to 130k, Daniel Negreanu knows that he has to commit all his chips to play the hand. The flaw in this thinking is that by raising to 90k, Daniel still knows that he has to commit all his chips to play the hand! The amount of your raise (from 80k-130k) in this spot should have almost no affect on what Daniel will do. It also should have very little effect on what your opponents after you do. They will not try to attack you because you made a smallish raise, as you could easily have made this raise with AA or KK, and Daniel could have a big hand as well.

The main reason that you should raise to 80-90k is that if one of the players wakes up with a huge hand after you, you lose about 40-50k less by raising less, while at the same time risking NOTHING!

This situation won’t happen very often because most of the time none of the remaining opponents will have a hand worth playing. However on those rare occasions where it does come up, you will be happy to have the extra 40-50k.

In the actual hand Negreanu raised to 30k with 55 and Annie made it 130k to go. Gregory Raymer woke up with KK and moved allin, convincing Annie to fold. Her larger raise put an extra chunk of chips out in the middle for no reason. This is the kind of situation that’s easy to take for granted while you are playing, as it can happen so many times without ever being punished. However it’s good to take pride in always making the best choice, and I think that by raising to 80-90k in this spot, you will be making the correct play.

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