Listen up. This is another column that pounds home the mantra that poker is about people, not chips and cards.
And I don’t mean just tells either. It’s just as important to know an opponent’s style, and it can be as simple as small-pot poker vs. big-pot poker.
Some players prefer to play smaller pots to minimize the risk, gain some momentum and make it easy to get away from a hand. Some players with a lot more gamble in them don’t mind the risk of the big loss because the benefit of a big gain puts a big hurt on an opponent.
Thomas “Thunder” Keller ran into that situation in the $5,000 buy-in no-limit hold ’em event at this year’s World Series of Poker, where he entered heads-up play against Martin de Knijff with almost a 4-1 chip lead.
“It looked like a lock that I was going to win my first bracelet in my first World Series of Poker,” said Keller, 23, a pro with round features and a bubbling personality (think John Candy with Big Slick). “I was pretty psyched.”
But the talented, classy Swede, who won $2.7 million in copping the World Poker Tour championship event this year, used a series of all-in moves to snag smaller pots and gain momentum as he nearly evened the stacks.
“When he’s moving all in like that,when he’s playing so aggressive, I know I’m going to have to make a stand,” said Keller, a Michigan native with an economics degree from Stanford.
Thomas Keller’s hand
10 of spades
10 of hearts
Martin de Knijff’s hand
King of clubs
2 of clubs
Keller drew pocket 10s and raised on the button. De Knijff called with K-deuce of clubs.
The flop came 2-4-9, two clubs. De Knijff, who flopped bottom pair and a flush draw, checked. Keller, now a slight underdog even though he held the overpair, bet the size of the pot.
“I wanted to play a big pot with him,” Keller said. “I wanted to have it all decided on one hand since he’d been winning every other hand. He’d been kind of grinding me down. He definitely had the momentum.”
The flop
2 of diamonds
4 of clubs
9 of clubs
The turn
9 of diamonds
The river
9 of spades
Keller got what he wanted. De Knijff check-raised all in, and Keller called. The turn and river both came 9s. De Knijff made 9s full of deuces. Keller, however, made 9s full of 10s.
“He made a full house and I made a bigger one,” Keller said of the hand that clinched his first WSOP bracelet and $382,020. “Absolute joy. It was insane.”
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Table talk
Bottom pair: Matching the low card on the board with one in your hand.
Flush draw: Four cards to flush
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srosenbloom@tribune.com
