Gold Hand of the Day: Setup of Pocket Pairs After the Bubble

Photo: Mikael Andersson

In poker, preflop confrontations can often be unavoidable and one of them occurred after the bubble had burst on Day 2. 

At blinds of 10,000-15,000 and big blind ante of 15,000, Steven Burgess raised to 30,000 and Benn Mcauley three-bet to 80,000 in the next seat. Gary Lin then four-bet to 140,000 in the cutoff and Mikael Larsson five-bet jammed for 255,000 on the button. Burgess ended up folding, Mcauley jammed and Lin got out of the way after getting a count on Larsson’s all-in.

Mikael Larsson: .
Benn Mcauley: .

The  board changed nothing and Larsson more than doubled. Lin mentioned he folded pocket queens, Emanuel Seal said he folded pocket tens in the small blind. Larsson knocked out Mcauley and Simon Thwaites in another thrilling preflop cash soon after and busted just shy of the final three tables.

Lin folded and preserved his stack, as did Burgess and they went even deeper in the tournament. Burgess finished in 16th place while Lin advanced to the nine-handed final table to make this button clicking war our Gold Hand of the Day.