Generally, when talking about poker plays I admire, I'm describing bets and raises. But here (quite unusually, in a tournament situation) is a flat call I very much liked. It came up on day two of EPT London, when the blinds were 400-800 with a running ante of 100.
The first player to act after the blinds ("Under The Gun") raised to 1700 from a stack of about 60,000. The button, with a similar stack, called. The small blind (whose name was Jamie Brown) called along, from a 75k stack. And the big blind moved all in for 18,000.
The first raiser and caller both passed. Jamie Brown called and rolled over a pair of nines. The big blind showed A7, failed to improve and was knocked out.
I really like Brown's smooth call of the first raise. So many players would re-raise simply because they've found a decent pair. But the stack sizes could get him into so much trouble. If the UTG raiser calls a three-bet, Brown has to play out of position throughout the hand; if he four-bets, Brown is forced to choose between an expensive fold, an even more expensive call or a potentially suicidal shove.
Calling with the nines gives him much more flexibility. When the big blind then shoves, Brown gets to see if the UTG raiser really has anything before making his decision: play heads-up without risk of knockout, or pass if a bigger hand reveals itself through eager action from the early raiser. If the big blind had passed, Brown retained the option of check-folding cheaply if the flop and betting looked dangerous. If they didn't … well, his hand is nicely disguised for value.
It is usually best to play tournament hands with aggression and commitment. But not always, as this clever and flexible call reveals.
