I recently spent a day playing in an exceptionally good $100-$200 hold'em game at Bellagio in Las Vegas. The game was so good that someone was actually able to take a bad beat with an 8-3 (suited, of course). He had two pair with the 8-high flush draw going to the river, and lost to the big blind's 5-2 when he made a gutshot straight on the river. But, as fate often has it, my day did not play out as I had scripted it on the drive to the casino.
Things started out poorly for me, as I had a few big hands cracked, and then the following fairly interesting hand (interesting enough to qualify for column material, anyway) came up:
A couple of players who had been "active" (a nice poker euphemism, basically meaning, "I hope they don't run out of money") limped in, and I made a very standard raise to $200 from middle position with pocket queens. Everyone folded to the player on the button, who made it three bets.
Now, before jumping to conclusions about the strength of the reraiser's hand, it is necessary to comment a bit about him. This player, Kenny, is a local professional player against whom I have logged more hours than I can count. We are very friendly yet very competitive adversaries; in fact, he accuses me of smirking at him every time I beat him in a pot. He is highly successful, with a style that is much looser than mine preflop, but his looseness is typically exemplified by calls rather than raises or reraises. So, his reraise posed a real problem for me and my queens.
Following his reraise, only one of the limpers called, and I subsequently called, as well, although I no longer liked my hand very much. The main problem was that Kenny tends to give my raises quite a bit of respect, and doesn't reraise without a monster. So, I limited his likely range of holdings to big pairs, such as A-A, K-K, J-J, or possibly 10-10. I didn't give Kenny much chance of holding A-K or A-Q here, as he tended not to reraise me with these hands. The other opponent appeared to be tilting a bit, as he was stuck pretty good in the game and had been caught bluffing on several occasions.
The flop was fairly interesting: 8-7-6 rainbow. It was checked to Kenny, who bet. The other player and I both called. The turn brought a baby card, and again it was checked to Kenny, who fired again. Once again, we both called.
Now, things got interesting. The river brought a 5, and the first player bet out. This put me in a very difficult spot. The problem was that although this player had shown an inclination to bluff, this was a tough spot to pull it off, as the pot was large and it looked as though Kenny would have to pay it off. This seemed obvious to me, anyway. So, I decided that the bettor probably could beat my queens, and even if he couldn't, Kenny likely held a bigger pair. After quite a bit of thought, I folded. Kenny called immediately. The bettor shrugged and showed pocket tens, for one pair. To my horror, Kenny showed a pair of jacks and took the pot. I thought to myself, #$%^$#%^$#@!
Now, it's an old poker adage that if you never fold a winner, you won't be a winning player, but let's look at a few particulars in this case to see if it was an example of bad luck or bad play:
1. The third player had established himself as a frequent bluffer. Even though this appeared to be a hopeless spot for a successful bluff, that view was not necessarily shared by my slightly off-centered opponent. With that fact in mind, his bet actually provided me with an opportunity, had I so chosen. A raise on my part, although I may well be flushing another $400 down the toilet, would almost certainly force Kenny to fold. If the bettor was in fact bluffing and Kenny held A-A or K-K (both scenarios were at least somewhat likely), this raise would get me the pot. The fact that the pot had grown to a good size lends some validity to this play.
2. Kenny almost certainly held a big pair. This makes calling by me almost certainly a losing proposition. In fact, I can beat only J-J or 10-10. Based on my read of the situation, it looks like I have only two real options: raising or folding.
3. I didn't work to define my hand after the flop. Perhaps this fiasco could have been avoided altogether had I succeeded in this area. With a small board, a check-raise or lead bet at some point in the hand would likely provide me with more information about the strength of Kenny's hand. The stronger he played, the less likely it was that my pair of queens was any good. Also, had I chosen to play my hand more aggressively, perhaps the third player in the pot would have opted against betting on the river, as he certainly would have realized that two very strong hands were out against him. By taking the lead in the hand, I just may have prevented myself from making a disastrous laydown.
Shortly after this hand, Kenny began racking up his mountains of chips, saying something about needing to go rotate the air in his tires. I quit a few hours later, a pretty decent winner in the game, but with a bad taste in my mouth still lingering from this key hand.
