Pub Poker

One of my good friends, Ray Powers from Chandler, Arizona (an avid pub poker fan), and I have been discussing poker a lot lately via AOL instant messenger, as he is trying desperately to improve his poker game and I often have a lot of dead time between games of $300-$600 heads-up hold'em, Omaha eight-or-better, and triple-draw at UltimateBet.com. Recently he described his last pub poker foray and I found it so amusing that I felt compelled to share it with you. So, without further adieu, let's take a brave step into the unknown, man's final frontier, pub poker! The following tale is told by Ray, with my commentary intertwined in italics.

Last night was pub poker night. Jay, Mike, and Brad were there with me to play, and Leigh was there to watch. Dan did not show, the slacker. The best part was his excuse that he was broke. Uh, it's a free event, and it wasn't like one of us wouldn't have bought him a beer or something. Whatever. Ray chose not to invite me this time. I guess he probably thinks that I would find playing poker for free boring, and he is probably right, but I am always up for having a drink with good company, even if poker has to be involved.


I told the group that we had been slacking, and that at least two of us needed to make the final table. Alas, though, it was not meant to be, as I was the only one to survive past the second break, and that was mainly because I had no hands to play. I played literally five hands the entire night. I went out 12th out of 64 players. That's OK, Ray, you have to learn to enjoy losing; plus, finishing 12th in a tourney is a lot better than I have done lately.


However, all was not lost, as I did have a fun time when we had "poker kid" at our table. This kid looks like he should not even be allowed in the bar, as I would put him at age 19 or so at best. He appears to have spent a long time practicing chip tricks, and whenever he gets in a hand, he puts on his cool reflective sunglasses so that we can't read him, acting like Mr. Professional Poker Player at a free pub poker tournament. It's pretty funny. It was made all the more funny when, short-stacked and in the big blind, he folded in an unraised pot, thinking the pot had been raised. He would have ended up winning the monster pot with a full house. When we pointed out his mistake, he threw his glasses and chips down and got all ticked off. Sounds like a young Mike Matusow. Just kidding; love ya, Mikey!


Hey, poker kid, this is free pub poker. I'd tell you to have a drink and chill, but I don't think you're old enough to drink. Regardless, play "seriously" if you want, but realize that this is a free event and stop treating it like the final table of the main event of the World Series of Poker.



Anyway, I think I am misplaying these free events because my rockish tendencies toward hands is leading me to believe that people have more than they actually do, more often than not. During one of the hands that I did get to play, I looked down at pocket tens. This hand looked like a gold mine compared to the trash I had been getting all night, so I raised from late position to three times the big blind and got two callers.



The flop came down K-5-4 with two clubs. I figured the action would check to me, and I would place a feeler bet to see if this flop hit anyone big. Things did not happen as I envisioned. The first player very confidently bet about three-fourths of the pot and the next player called with no hesitation. Both players looked extremely confident, so I figured that at least one or maybe both had a king. If not, one or both easily could have a straight or a flush draw, giving them a ton of outs to beat me even if my tens were actually the best hand at the moment, so I folded when the action got to me. If only one player had stayed in, I would have considered calling or coming over the top, but with both just oozing confidence that they had the best hand, I decided to muck and live to fight another day. I still had a decent-sized stack at this point, so I did not feel committed to the pot.



They continued to bet and call to the river, where one player turned over A-5, and the other A-4. As it turned out, I actually mucked the best hand when both of my opponents combined had only six outs to beat me: the remaining two fours, two fives, and two aces left in the deck. Each player was extremely confident in his middle and bottom pair, respectively, and I bailed out on the pot, thinking I was beat to two outs. If I had felt confident that I had the best hand, I definitely would have stayed in, and likely would have raised the flop.



While it's easy to think that I just got outplayed in this spot by someone trying to force me off my medium pair, that's not what I got from these two opponents. They both honestly believed their lower pairs were good, and exuded the confidence of having the "best hand." This makes it extremely difficult for me to read them, since I get the feeling that they are very confident that they are holding the best hand, but they don't have the slightest idea of what a strong or weak hand really is, considering the board and the previous action.



I told Ray that I liked his play of laying down a middle pocket pair on the flop in this spot (especially since he still had lots of chips left), and that one of the toughest parts of playing against amateurs is reading them, since you can't read someone who doesn't know what he is holding himself. Luckily, though, against amateur players like this, you can afford to lay down the best hand frequently, since these players are often willing to get all of their chips in with any pair when you're holding a very big hand (at least top pair, top kicker with a non-threatening board). Now, if Ray were short-stacked in this spot, I definitely think he would have to move in and hope to win the pot right then, or hope that if one of his opponents called, his tens would hold up or he would spike a wonderful 10 on the turn or the river if he was beat.

Thomas "Thunder" Keller is a 25-year-old professional poker player and one of poker's young and rising stars. He can often be found playing at UltimateBet.com under the name thunderkeller. To learn more about him, go to his website at http://www.thunderkeller.com/. Feel free to contact him at [email protected]. Also feel free to tease his friend Ray about his play at [email protected], or make fun of other plays he makes at http://raypowers.blogspot.com.