Protecting Your Interests

The 2002 World Series of Poker is history, and with it, a new champion was crowned. Congratulations to Robert Varkonyi. A quiet and unassuming champion, Robert reminds me of the PGA Tour's Ernie Els – quiet and passive, with a killer instinct and a deadly passion. Robert's victory will accompany many future stories about a hand that used to be my favorite in hold'em, Q-10. Not only did Robert win the tournament with Q-10, he also won a few other key pots with it, including the hand he won that crippled Phil Hellmuth late in the tournament. Q-10 was my favorite hand to play back when I first started playing poker; maybe I will have to start liking it again.

During this year's WSOP, a few situations arose that caught me off guard and almost cost me some tournament chips. Here are a few of the different things that happened to me that might help you protect your chips during a future hand of poker.

In the late stages of an Omaha eight-or-better tournament, I had called a raise from the big blind with the A Q K J. The flop came down K 9 5. I check-raised my lone opponent, and he called. When the turn brought the 4, I bet and my opponent called. The river brought the J, I bet $800, and my opponent immediately grabbed a large stack of chips and declared, "Raise." He cut out two stacks of four $100 chips, and as soon as he started on the third stack, I called the extra $800. When my opponent showed that he had pocket aces, I showed my two pair and won the pot. As my opponent hadn't released his hand yet, the dealer wasn't going to push me the pot until he had the cards. At this point, one of the other players at the table said to the dealer, "Are you sure the bets are right?" This immediately signaled an alert with me, and I knew right away that he was referring to my opponent's bets. I asked the dealer to count down the pot, and sure enough, there was $400 missing.

What I had done during this hand is violate one of my own cardinal rules, to pay attention to the money. As soon as I was certain my opponent had made the move to raise, I put my chips into the pot without allowing him to complete his action. Therein lies the lesson of the day: Always allow the player in front of you to completely finish his action before you proceed with your own. Not only will this ensure that you get the correct amount of chips, it will cut down on the number of decisions that have to be made in your game. I have always said that if every player were to wait for the previous player to totally complete his action, the number of petty decisions that had to be made would decrease by 50 percent, and maybe even more.

The player who had inadvertently shorted my pot added $400 and the chips were pushed to me. Later in that same tournament, I got down to just $400 in chips and had to go all in. I won that pot and was fortunate enough to advance into the money. Had that error not been discovered, I very likely could have missed a payday because of my inattention.

During a different hand, I had made a bet on the river with the board showing A-2-3-8-8. My hand consisted of A-A-2-10, aces full. As I showed down my hand, my opponent released his hand toward the muck. The dealer was busy collecting chips and getting ready to push me the pot when I stopped him and asked him to please muck the hand that was lying in the middle of the table. He obliged, and did so, but I shouldn't have had to ask him to do that. I couldn't imagine four cards in that hand good enough to call me with that couldn't have a low worth half of the pot. Many times I have seen the player grab the hand back and claim half the pot in this situation. My recommendation to all players is to ask the dealer to immediately kill any hands that have been surrendered. Perhaps with a little bit of practice, dealers who do not routinely do this will get the picture and realize that they could be costing someone a lot of money by making this mistake.

Editor's note: Michael O'Malley can usually be found playing online at partypoker.com as Rzitup. To learn more about Michael, go to www.rzitup.com.