{"id":8376,"date":"2021-03-01T15:33:39","date_gmt":"2021-03-01T15:33:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.coinpoker.com\/?p=8376"},"modified":"2021-03-01T15:33:39","modified_gmt":"2021-03-01T15:33:39","slug":"when-i-played-the-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/when-i-played-the-police\/","title":{"rendered":"Once Upon a Time: When I Played The Police"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Isabelle Mercier returns to the series Once Upon A Time telling us what NOT to do at a poker table. After last week recalling the time when she should have gone all-in<\/a><\/strong>, this time the story involves… the police?!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s clich\u00e9 to say it, but it’s from our mistakes that we learn the most. The lesson I learned that day is this: There is no point in playing the police at a poker table. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Turningstone Tournament<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Flashback; It’s summer 2004, I’m not \u201cNo Mercy\u201d yet, just Isabelle Mercier, a young poker player who has just turned pro for six months and who has to prove herself on the circuit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was not until later that famous presenter Mike Sexton gave me my nickname after winning the WPT Ladies Night. At the moment, I’m Isabelle Nobody Mercier and I entered a tournament in Turningstone, New York, for a US $ 500 buy-in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering my low bankroll at the time, it was thanks to a satellite that I was able to participate in this tournament. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had only been a pro for a few months, and times were tough for me. I wondered whether I had made a mistake in leaving the Aviation Club de France to become a pro with such a small starting bankroll, which kept decreasing\u2026  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before going into the details of the anecdote, a word about my dress looks: it was big nonsense. I don’t know what hit me that morning when I deliberately chose to wear these horrible clothes and especially this ridiculous hat, but let’s say I didn’t go unnoticed, as the photo shows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Isabelle<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Mistakes and mistakes throughout the tournament<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The tournament had just started, and I arrived a few minutes late to discover a nice pair of 10. The starting stack is 10,000 chips, the blinds are 50-100, and two or three players decide to call the big blind before me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also decided to simply call (yes, very bad move). And suddenly, there is this guy in Big Blind who gets carried away and moves all-in for 9950. Nothing less. WTF! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other players fold their hands and it’s my turn. I start to think. I tell myself that it’s impossible for him to do that with AA, KK, QQ or even JJ. He wants to make everyone fold by moving all-in, a classic move for amateur players. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s suicidal, it’s an obvious mistake, but Mr. Big Blind certainly thinks he’s pretty good doing it.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What should I have done?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In principle, in this case, one folds his hand very wisely while waiting for a better spot with a better hand to catch him if he remakes that kind of raise all-in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, instead of letting the storm pass, I wanted to play the police. I convinced myself that he had AK at best, so technically with my pair of 10s I was slightly ahead. So, I called the bet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As unbelievable as it may seem, Mr. Big Blind did have a pair of Aces. My hand that I thought favorite had just melted like snow in the sun, and I ended up with a little 20% chance of winning the pot: well-done police-girl! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pro-tip: don’t play the police!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I found myself having to play my whole tournament on an 80-20, simply for wanting to punish a player. I lost that flip, but I didn’t bust out, I had exactly 50 chips left out of my 10,000 starting stack. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was going to be able to test the famous phrase “A chip and a chair” and see if it was indeed possible to come back from hell and turn 50 chips into a victory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spoiler alert: I didn’t win this tournament but still finished ITM with a nice fourth place in a split, which was, considering my starting micro-stack, completely miraculous. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learning from my mistakes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What got me to the final table was my ‘fear of nothing’ style of play, as if I had already busted out from my first hand and had nothing more to lose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This win also allowed me to replenish my bankroll enough to persevere in my new pro career and to continue playing until the day I won the WPT Ladies Night and was spotted by PokerStars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, the Turningstone event went well. Still, the lesson has been learned anyway. There’s no point in playing the police at a poker table. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t react to an ultra-agro player. Nonetheless, suicide missions usually end badly\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meet me at the tables on\u00a0CoinPoker\u00a0to practice your skills and enjoy the action. Open yourself a CoinPoker account<\/a>\u202ftoday.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Isabelle \u201cNo Mercy\u201d Mercier<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

WPT Winner & <\/strong>OFC \u201cProgressive\u201d World Champion<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Isabelle Mercier returns to the series Once Upon A Time telling us what NOT to do at a poker table. After last week recalling the time when she should have gone all-in, this time the story involves… the police?! It’s clich\u00e9 to say it, but it’s from our mistakes that we learn the most. The lesson I … Once Upon a Time: When I Played The Police<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":8248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[189],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-strategy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8376"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}