[Blair]

Experience in poker is a critical element in advanced play. For players with thousands of hours at the tables, sometimes the answer just comes to you, and you're not sure from where. In fact, I often try to blank my conscious mind and let my subconscious do the work, something known as soft focus. That's what happened with Tommy. I was a little confused, especially after his call on the flop. I expected him to either move in or fold. When he moved in so quickly on the turn when the ten hit, I suddenly got got this very strong intuition that he could have only had 9's. Then I worked it back in my head. The only hands he could have called a raise of that size on the flop were an over pair to the board, or a set. I might have given other players credit for other possibilities, but not him, especially considering he originally raised from the 1-hole. His range of hands for an early position raise , at least in my mind, was AK, maybe AQ, and a pair of 8's or higher. When he called my raise, I eliminated AK and AQ. If he'd had AA,KK,QQ or JJ, and chose to continue with the hand after my raise, he would have been comitted to the pot and would most likely have moved in there in case I was getting out of line with some weird drawing hand. That left TT,99 and 88, none of which I could beat. Nines made the most sense, because on the flop he would probably have moved in with a set of 8's, and either folded or moved in with tens. With 9's, had he missed the hand, he could still have gotten away from it with 16k to work with, if I moved in on the turn. And in fact, that's what he told me his thought process was when I asked him about the hand. He also told me that he moved in because he didn't want to give me a chance to check behind him and take a free card that could hurt him.