POTD #134 A WSOP Paradise $50,000 I Face an Overbet Shove

Should I have shoved first?

I’ve played enough poker hands that I tend to think I’ve seen it all. It’s rare that I am surprised by how a hand plays out, and yet, when you play hundreds of thousands of hands a year, you will still play hands that catch you off guard. Every poker player knows the feeling of sitting there while your opponent tanks, thinking “please do anything except go all-in, I don’t know what to do versus that.” They also know the feeling of seeing someone, usually head in hands, bemoaning their fate as they get shoved into. “I knew what I was going to do… unless you did that.” The advice I will give anyone when they are put in that unfortunate situation is, try to regain your composure as quickly as possible. You were hoping to not get shoved into, but now that it’s happened, you need to make the right decision.

In a tournament without a shot clock, you will usually have some time to compose yoursefl and think through the hand, but in a tournament with a shot clock, time is commodified as time bank chips. You need to act quickly, and you also need to perform two calculations in your head: “Is my hand worth a call?” and “Am I using too many time banks to think about this hand?” All of this while you are distracted by a physical clock or dealer counting down your dwindling time. The question of how many time banks you should be willing to use on a given hand is of less importance than getting your decision right in a big pot, but it is not irrelevant, and ideally, you can strike a happy balance between thoroughly thinking through a hand and not wasting valuable time bank chips. However, ultimately, thinking of time considerations is a distraction from the primary question: Should you be calling this bet worth tens of thousands of dollars right now? In today’s hand, I was not thinking “please don’t go all-in”; it wasn’t even on my radar that my opponent might shove, and when he did, I was confused and frazzled. I tried to regain my composure, while also thinking about time bank management, and left the hand feeling unsatisfied. Upon further review, could I have done something different, or is it just the reality of playing poker that sometimes you will feel confused and unsatisfied? Read on to learn more.

2024 WSOP Paradise #13 $50,000 NLHE
(8k/16k/16k) (SB/BB/BBA) 300k Starting Stack. Registration is Open

HH: Pokernews Update
It folds to Felipe Ketzer (220k) in the CO who makes it 32k, it folds to me (467k) in the SB with KT offsuit (I forget the suits), I call, and the BB folds.

Flop (96k) 9♠️8♥️7♦️: I check, Felipe bets all-in for 188k, I fold.