Raise and take it

I'm reasonably sure I first heard the poker phrase "Raise and take it" prior to this year's WSOP Main Event, but it was cemented in my consciousness when I watched this month's November Nine. Joe McKeehen had a monster stack at the start of the final table, and it just kept getting bigger and bigger until he had all the chips at the table. Norman Chad being the color man, it was play-by-play man Lon McEachern who kept repeating the phrase "Raise and take it" whenever McKeehen took down a pot by raising (which was quite often).

There are actually two circumstances under which a raise will take down the pot the majority of the time:

1. you have a monster stack, like McKeehen did (this takes down the pot 95% of the time)
2. you're heads up, and your opponent is sitting out (this takes down the pot 100% of the time)

The second circumstance is much rarer than the first, and feels very odd when it occurs. It's happened to me before, but never to the extent it did in the second sit and go I played last night. Of the 90 hands I played heads up, my opponent sat out for fully 82 of them. I just sat there clicking the raise button, continually taking down small pots until I finally came in first. It's not pretty, but it gets the job done :-)

style flavor buy_in entry players hands place winnings

SNG   8-Game   9000  1000       6   107     2    18900
SNG   8-Game  45000  5000       6   191     1   175500

delta: $134,400
Sit and go 8-game balance: $588,810
balance: $10,182,864