Pressure can take many forms at the poker table, whether related to strategy, probability, emotion or others. One of those others, particularly as we near the end of the day, is time pressure. This was the case on table 34 just now.
Vera G. had initially raised to 8,600 from late position preflop, which was raised again to 18,000 by the neighbor on her left, Miguel Cambronne. Eventually she called.
Flop:
Vera checked, and Miguel shoved for his remaining 27,000. A quick glance at Vera’s stack showed that she had essentially the same amount of chips. One wrong decision and her night was over. As for Miguel, he had already made his choice, so he waited patiently for Vera to make her decision.
It eventually came down to the clock, with the tournament manager being called over to put 30 seconds on the clock. Because of an issue with the machine, he was forced to call out the last 5 seconds aloud. With one second remaining Vera was forced to toss in her cards, folding the hand.
Miguel took it down, and both players lived to play another hand. With only a few minutes left in level 13, however, the time pressure remains for most of the players still at the tables.