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There are many kinds of hands that we as poker players remember. We certainly recall taking terrible beats. We don’t often forget our big calls or bold bluffs. Sometimes we even remember our lucky outdraws (although, of course, our opponents have gotten lucky and sucked out on us far more often than we have on them). But this hand doesn’t really fall into any of the above categories. It is a hand that I will remember for a long time, particularly because I will never know if I made the right decision on the river.
OK, so the stage is set for some high drama. My opponent (hereafter referred to as “the villain”) and I both have enormous stacks in the Party Poker 2K 6-max game.
Starting with stacks of $2,000 in a cash game with blinds of $10- $20, the villain has run his stack up to $16,000 while I have built mine up to $23,000. No one else at the table has more than $2,700. The villain and I are across the table from each other, and while we are running over the rest of the players, we are fighting each other hard for the table captaincy.
First, I’ll give a quick background on my opponent in this hand. He is, in my opinion, my toughest opponent on Party Poker, and by a pretty wide margin at that. He is an exceptional hand-reader and a courageous bluffer who can make huge calls with thin holdings, and can also lay down huge hands (which is a very important fact when considering the play of this hand). He plays almost (but not quite) as loose-aggressive (LAG) as I do. For those of you unfamiliar with my own game, I’m widely considered to be the biggest LAG on Party Poker and perhaps in all of online poker. I usually play over 50% of my hands, and come in raising over 35% of them. The villain and I have gone to battle quite a few times with quirky hands, flopping pairs and gutshots versus strange two pairs and such. While we have played huge pots against each other a number of times in the past (often with marginal holdings, draws, and bluffs), we have not yet tangled in a huge pot in this session.
The under-the-gun player (UTG), who has about $2,000 to start the hand, limps in for $20. The villain limps in second position. It folds to me in the cutoff, and I raise to $65 with 8c 6s. Both of the blinds fold, and both of the limpers call. The flop comes down: 7d 5c 2h. UTG bets only $60 into a pot of about $225. The villain calls the $60. With the advantage of being the preflop raiser (and thus able to represent a hand like a big pair), having position on the other two, and of course, having an extremely well-disguised open-ended straight draw, I raise to $190. I think there is a good chance I can take the pot right away if the other two have marginal hands; and if they do stay with me, I will have built the pot in case I do hit.
UTG folds. The villain now reraises to $600. After my initial disappointment at not taking down the pot right there, I reconsider and lick my chops. I am now almost hoping he has the set he is representing (certainly the cold call, followed by a reraise of the preflop raiser is a very powerful move). The villain is capable of making that move with a pair plus drawtype hand; however, the fact that the flop was a rainbow is a HUGE consideration. That rules out a lot of pair-plus-flushdraw possibilities, and a set is definitely the likeliest holding here. I actually hope he has a strong hand, because if I hit my draw, it will be totally disguised. I am dreaming of my soonto- be $39000 stack when my straight hits. I call.
The turn is the Jc. The villain now fires $1,350 into the pot of about $1,500. Man, he sure isn’t letting me draw cheaply. Of course, this would normally be a routine fold. But given our deep stacks, the implied odds are huge. He must have a set here. Again I reiterate that there was no flush draw on the flop, so a pair plus draw hand really looks unlikely. It must be a set. I call.
I can feel the nine or the four coming on the river. There it is... NO! It’s the Ad. Damn. All I have is eight-high. There is $4,200 in the pot. The villain bets $3,800. I check my poker hand rankings sheet to make sure that a set beats eight-high. It does. Sadly, I move my mouse to fold... But then a thought hits me. What did I play my hand like I am holding? Before I answer, consider, of course, that the villain still has about $9,500 behind after his river bet. Well, I raised two limpers preflop. There was a bet and a call on the flop – and I raised that! Then I called a third reraise. I followed that with a $1,350 call on the turn... Why, I must have A-A or J-J! I excitedly check my poker hand rankings card again, and it says that A-A-A and J-J-J both beat 7-7-7, 5-5-5, and 2-2-2.
The stack size is PERFECT. The opponent is perfect. As strong as he is, I believe the villain can absolutely fold a set if he thinks he is beaten here (one of very, very few players that I’d try that against – especially since I am such an aggressive player myself).
My clock ticks down. I time-out on my other tables. I think about whether or not I should pull the trigger on this one. Cojones are not the issue: If I feel it is plus EV, I will make the move. I think about showing my hand after he folds and try to envision the folk songs that will be written about me and this hand. I think about all the voluptuous women that will be swooning over me when they see the way I played this. I think about whether or not to grow a goatee when ESPN comes knocking to film The Best Hand I Ever Played. Tick, tick, tick, 5, 4, 3... I take a deep breath and prepare to move all in ... 2, 1... and…
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make up my mind in time, and I folded. Later, my opponent confirmed that he did indeed have a set of fives. He said he didn’t know whether or not he would have folded if I had pushed. So to this day, I don’t know if I should have pulled the trigger or not.
I think that any reasonably intelligent person can be taught to be a winning player playing tight-aggressive ABC poker. To be a great player however, one must have the imagination, creativity and courage to find opportunities such as the one outlined here. Having said that, a common and unfortunate tendency is to find creative plays in every situation and err on the side of overplaying.
To truly transcend the masses and become an outstanding player, one must have not only the imagination to accompany the fundamentals, but also the temerity and discipline to know when to put these plays in motion. I don’t know whether or not putting it all in with my eight-high would have worked in this particular case. I may have thrown away a huge pot by not pulling the trigger – I just don’t know. But the possibility certainly creates a lot of thought and enlivens what would otherwise have been a straightforward hand.
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