The Right Play at the Wrong Time

Every time a guy called "Nick from New Jersey" passed by me in a tournament, he would say, "I played perfect all day long, I don't know how I lost." I knew that was so much bull because I had played with him at another tournament when we were down to two and a half tables. He had been raising a lot of pots, and he came in for a raise from the first seat. I was in the big blind and looked down at the A Q.

"I've been waiting for this," I thought as I called his raise. "I know he doesn't have a hand. He's bluffing, and I know he's gonna fire at the pot to show me strength to try to force me out." I also knew that I had to bet if the flop came with an ace or queen, and not let him take it away from me. The flop came Q-6-2, a good flop for me. I bet $4,000 and here he came with all of his chips. Boy, I beat him into the pot! "This is the perfect scenario, I've got him stone cold!" I was saying in my mind. And I was right – all he had was the J 9. His hand was dead to runner-runner. And sure enough, after all the money was in, he caught a 10 and an 8 to make the straight! I had the whole play figured out, everything I did was correct, and I still lost the hand.

It's called making the right play at the wrong time. That is the luck factor in poker. For five solid days, he had been telling me, "T.J., I'm playing perfect poker, I never make a mistake." Now I was playing at the same table with him, and I've already seen him make 10 mistakes. He really made a big one with all the money on the table, but he got there anyway!

Of course, sometimes you make the wrong play at the right time, which usually means that you're taking the worst hand and sucking out with it. There isn't a single poker player who hasn't sucked out on somebody or been sucked out on. I never feel bad when I put a bad beat on a player, because I figure that for me to lose, they have to put a bad beat on me. When you're playing against eight other players, if you put one bad beat on someone, you've won one pot. But if eight of them each puts a bad beat on you, you're an 8-to-1 dog right there!

Of course, things don't always work out the wrong way; sometimes they go exactly according to plan. I remember a lowball game I played at Artichoke Joe's in San Bruno in the old days when I was in my early 20s. Freddy the Chemist (we also called him Red-Shirt Freddy) was in the game with me. When Freddy was sober, he was the tightest player in the game, but for a guy who really knew how to play the game, was the loosest player who ever played lowball when he was drunk.

One night we were playing no-limit lowball without the joker, and Freddy had been drinking. I drew one card. He drew one card. I paired deuces. He bet about $6,000 right into me, just about what I had in front of me. "Freddy's done something different this time," I thought, "and I know he bluffs a lot when he's drinkin'." You see, Freddy always took time to make his bets.

He would hem and haw and count out his chips before he put in a bet. But when he bet this particular hand, he just shoved all of his chips in real quickly. Of course, he could've just paired his ace and had me beat, but he had bet enough that I couldn't raise him off the hand. A good play in lowball is to raise a guy when you figure that he's bluffing with something like a king or queen and you've got a pair, because then he can't call. But I couldn't get an edge by raising him, because there was nothing left to raise. In this situation, I had it set in my mind that he was bluffing, so I flat-called him. Sure enough, Freddy had two eights and I won the pot with two deuces.

Editor's note: T.J. Cloutier is the co-author (with Tom McEvoy) of the Championship series of poker books, including Championship Omaha and Championship Hold'em. All of his books are available through Card Player. For more information, visit www.pokerbooks.com.