Koral Makes Great Call at the Horseshoe
Thomas Koral has been cashing in major live poker tournaments consistently for three years now, but his biggest payday came last week at the Horseshoe Hammond WSOP Circuit Event. Koral finished second in the $5000 + $150 main event and took home over $126,000, mostly because of a great call he made at the final table with four players left in the poker tournament.
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After an opponent doubled up on him, Koral found himself in a hand with A-8 of diamonds against Gary Leibovitz. His chip stack was a bit low and he couldn’t afford too many more mistakes. After a flop of J-2-8 came off, both players played it cautiously and checked the action.
The turn brought a K, and this time Leibovitz wasn’t going to let the hand get away – not without giving Koral a tough decision to make at a crucial point in the tournament. Leibovitz bet all-in, putting the pressure on Koral to make a call with only third-best pair.
After a lot of thinking, Koral made the hero call with his small pair. Leibovitz turned over an open-ended straight draw semi-bluff, with a 10-9 in his hand. After another King came on the river, Koral had doubled up and raised his stack to second place with 785,000 in chips. Shortly after that he called an all-in bet from Kyle Schertz and managed to knock him out after pocket nines held on for the win, elevating his stack to over 1.2 million.
To call off your stack with such a small piece of a board is no easy feat. Leibovitz easily could have had a King, when one considers how the betting went down in the hand. But Koral wasn’t buying it.
It’s the kind of play that separates the best from the rest. If you want to learn how to make calls like that, practice your skills at Pinnacle Sports Poker’s wide selection of tournament action.
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