Alec Torelli’s “Hand of the Day”: Best Fold of All Time?
Alec Torelli is a poker professional originally from California, but travels the world full time with his wife, Ambra. Torelli has over $1.5 million in live tournament earnings (including two World Series of Poker final tables and two World Poker Tour final tables) as well as over $500,000 in online tournament earnings. Outside of poker he and his wife manage a million-dollar online business which travels the world with them.
Today Torelli shares another episode of his new “Hand of the Day” series in which he analyzes hands played by him and submitted to him by others.
It’s one of the biggest faults of human nature — to get so preoccupied with your own world that you forget to think about others around you. Yet seeing the world through the eyes of another is how we progress, strengthen relationships, thrive in business, and even win at poker.
You might have heard about a hand I played recently on Poker Night in America — a three-way hand involving me, PokerNews Managing Editor Chad Holloway, and Shaun Deeb. In the hand I flopped a set of nines, and after betting and getting raised by Chad, it came as a shock to the table when I folded my pocket nines face up — in two seconds, no less.
Truth be told, I merely followed that rule described above, reasoning about the situation from the perspective of Chad. Here is the principle question one should be asking:
What hands would I play this way if I were him?
Asking that question gave me a clear, trivial answer — my hand was no good.
Second-tier, far less relevant questions should be considered only if that first one leads to ambiguity, questions like...
Is he capable of making a move here?
What does my opponent think of me?
What history do we have together?
Again this exercise should always be done from the standpoint of your opponent since his proclivities are the only ones that matter.
In this episode of “Hand of the Day” I share that exhilarating Poker Night in America hand with some added commentary. If you still have doubts after watching the hand, redo this exercise by trying to think of a hand Chad could have which I beat.
Want to be featured on future episodes of “Hand of the Day”? Simply submit your hands to Alec here.
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