I went down to Bay 101 to watch a little bit of the Shooting Stars Tournament in San Jose and watched them play from 16 handed to 13 handed. 3 Tables left (they play six handed after they get down to a certain amount of players), and I was in front of the table with all of the big chip stacks. Seat 1 had about 650K, Seat 2(Chad Brown) had 450K(was losing alot of little pots to Seat 1), Seat 3(Robbie/local player) had about 500K and Seat 4 just became occupied a few rounds ago by Williams, who at this point was the chip leader at $1 million +. Ever since they had been 4 handed with Williams there had been half preflop raising, half limping, but the pots weren't very big. Of course, the reason for that might have been that those 4 had the 4 biggest stack left in the tourney when they got down to 13 left...and I think Williams had more by himself than each of the other two tables.

The reason there were so many small pots at this table was with the addition of having the huge stacks sitting here, the blinds were a modest 3K/ 6K with a 1K ante. So, mostly people were protecting their stacks and seemed to be waiting it out. Then, this hand happened.

Blinds and antes are the same(4 handed), Williams raised to 18K UTG. Folds around to Robbie who seemed to have been a little card dead the last half hour, although he did knock the last guy out. He calls in the BB.

Pots is 43K. Flop is [2d][Ks].

Robbie checks and Williams bets 40K(quickly, as his usual speed). Robbie thinks for a bit, but calls pretty quickly.

Pot is 123K. Turn is .

Robbie checks again, and Williams bets 80K. Robbie gets some chips out immediately, and starts stacking them. He takes about 30 seconds stacking them and then pushes his bet across. He tried to make it 175K straight, but got the measurement wrong on Williams' stack and put seven 10K chips across instead of the 80K Williams had bet. When he went to fix it, Williams put his hand in front of him and informed him that would be a string bet. So, the total bet counted out to 165K. Williams thought about this for about three minutes and finally called the turn CR.

Pot is 453K. River card is .

Robbie bets out 100K, Williams calls.

If you want to try and guess their hands, go ahead. Scroll down to the bottom for the results.
















Robbie flipped over [Td]. Williams had [2s]. Williams took down the 653K pot.
Everyone was pretty amazed at his hand, but I think it was clear that he had a good draw calling on the turn there. Although, a PFR with 32 sooted?!?!? That is insane to the nth degree in my mind. I did like his continuation bet on the flop though to try and take it down there. Robbie just made that big mistake of the CR on the turn there IMO. If he pushes there he can take it down easily...Williams even said to him later, "You gave me odds to call there." when they talked about the hand when the table broke for the dinner break.

Thought I would share this one hand with you...it was an interesting one to say the least.

I'm not surprised at all at Williams raising with 32s. He had position and would have taken the blinds, if that's all he could get. Very camoflauged hand.

This is why the people who learn from watching on TV will play any two suited from any position. And why they lose.

CJ