Poker Pro Folds Quads To All-In Bet In Main EventDespite Getting Great Pot Odds, Kyle Bowker Finds Epic Lay Down |
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Recent bracelet winner Kyle Bowker was playing the World Series of Poker main event on Wednesday and found himself involved in a pot where he had turned quads and was betting for value on the river. Bowker’s opponent then moved all in.
Bowker was ready to insta-call, but he paused and realized that exactly one straight flush combination was a likely holding for his opponent. The board read K
9 7x 7x J.
According to Bowker, he opened with pocket sevens from early position and everything that happened next made a straight flush a very real possibility.
“The next player flatted; the kid who I ended up folding to flatted,” Bowker told Card Player. “The big blind flatted. The flop came K 9 7. I bet 5,000. Fold. Kid in the middle calls. The big blind folds. The turn was another seven.”
Bowker decided not to slow-play his quads. He bet 11,000. The bet was called.
The dealer burned and put the J on the felt.
“I bet 40,000,” Bowker said, “which was pot because I felt like he had the nut flush draw and got there on the river. And then he moved all in for 98,000 in total.”
Despite getting a great price on the call, which wasn’t even for his tournament life, Bowker went into the tank. Every summer there are waves of criticism about tanking in tournaments, but sometimes thinking about a hand for what feels like an eternity to other players is justified.
“I was just going to put the money in, but I sat back and thought about it,” Bowker said. “I was quite sure he liked the river card, and he was a three-bettor, so he would have three-bet me preflop if he had kings and he probably would have three-bet me preflop if he had jacks. So, like nines was one of the hands, but I was very sure he wasn’t made on the flop or the turn and he liked the river card. So now it’s pocket jacks or Q 10, and I just really felt like he would have either three-bet preflop with jacks or not have gotten to the river with jacks. There was a zero-percent chance he was bluffing, so I thought it was really likely that it was the Q-10 of spades.”
Asked about the seven minutes he spent in the tank, Bowker said it was “way the most time I’ve ever taken for a poker hand.” The clock ended up being called on him.
“While I was thinking about it I was thinking that I was crazy, like ‘What am I doing in the tank for seven minutes with quads,’ but when it can only be a few hands: kings, jacks, nines, Q 10, and I can rule out some of those hands almost for sure, it just became a fold in my head.”
Bowker exposed the sevens when folding, and his opponent didn’t show. The tabled responded in utter disbelief, according to Bowker. “They didn’t think it was real.”
“He told me later that he had it,” Bowker said. “But he said he would have also shoved nines full on the river. But you never know for sure. He could have been lying to me.”
Bowker agreed with the notion that if his opponent didn’t have the straight flush he likely would have tabled a hand that inexplicably bluffed quads.
“I felt like when I showed my hand I could see on his face that he was disgusted,” Bowker said. “I felt really confident that I was making the right fold anyway, and that just kind of confirmed it more.”
When asked about the price he was getting on making the call, Bowker said that in a cash game or a tournament that’s not the WSOP main event he likely would have found a call.
“I was getting an amazing price. You have to be over 95-percent sure to make the fold. But I was. I am playing with more confidence than normal because I just won [a bracelet]. I wouldn’t call myself a big hero folder in general, and I probably wouldn’t have made the fold in any other tournament or cash game, even if I thought he had the Q 10. I would be like, ’If you have the Q 10 you got me. In this tournament, and being that sure, I thought I could make the fold.”
Bowker ended up surviving to day 3 of the tournament with 132,200 in chips, which was slightly below average with more than 2,000 players remaining.
Bowker’s hand is similar to the time Russian poker player Mikhail Smirnov folded quad eights in the 2012 $1 million buy-in at the WSOP. Smirnov also put his opponent on a straight flush in spades, and to this day it appears to have been the correct lay down.
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