Playing the Wrong Game

I’ve had a lot of requests to discuss interesting poker hands, so when these two hands took place recently, I figured they would make good material for my column — good material that cost me more than $10,000, but I guess you get what you pay for, so this column better be good.

These hands were played in side games during the WPT Championship at Bellagio. There was finally good side action in Vegas again. Maybe the economy is finally turning. Anyway, Jean-Robert Bellande was pumped up and starting games, which was the initial catalyst.

He started a $200-$400, $300-$600, or sometimes a $400-$800 game every day. After about a week, he decided that these games were too small for his $100,000ish bankroll, and he moved to Bobby’s Room to play higher. He played with lineups like Billy Baxter, Johnny Chan, and my dad. He usually insisted that badugi be in the mix, but no-limit single draw was always in there, too, and these guys are the best in the world at that game.

Nice game selection, Bobby. And he once said that I have a big ego! Just kidding, as I’m sure that he had his reasons. Maybe he hates money.

Once he moved up, I feared that our game would dry up, but quite the contrary. Most of the high-limit players from L.A. were there, as were many players from all over the country. The hottest games in L.A. for the past few years have been draw games. You may be familiar with triple draw and badugi, but probably not badacey and badeuce.

I’ll have to explain these games briefly so that what happened will make sense. Both of these games are five-card triple-draw games, like deuce-to-seven triple draw. You get five cards and get to draw up to three times. In deuce-to-seven triple draw, you’re trying to make the low hand — the best being 2-3-4-5-7 without a flush. Straights and flushes count against you in deuce-to-seven.

Badeuce is a split-pot game. Half of the pot goes to the best deuce-to-seven low hand, and the other half goes to the best badugi hand. A badugi hand is your best four offsuit cards. If no one has four offsuit cards, it’s the best three.

Badacey is half badugi, like badeuce, but the other half is ace-to-five lowball as opposed to deuce-to-seven. So, in badacey, straights and flushes do not count against you. Therefore, A-2-3-4-5 (a wheel) is the nuts. If the A-2-3-4 are all offsuit, you have a double wheel, nut-nut.

In the side games during this tournament, we played not only these games, but as many as 10 others in rotation. There were signs on the table stating what game was being played. I made sure that the signs were close to me, or at least clearly visible from my position, to help ensure that I didn’t play the wrong game.

If you play the wrong game, that’s obviously a bad thing to do. You almost always will lose the whole pot. Well, during one session, a guy played the wrong game twice in a 30-minute period, and beat me both times because of it. That could only happen to me. Here’s how it came down:

In the first hand, the game was deuce-to-seven triple draw. It was the final draw and my opponent and I each drew one card. My hand was 2-5-6-7. Being first, my opponent looked at what he had caught and checked. I looked down and squeezed my catch. It was what we call a “no-spotter” (an ace, deuce, or 3).

A 3 would give me a 7 low. A deuce would give me a pair of deuces, which, obviously, is bad in lowball. And the ace? Well, remember that this was deuce-to-seven lowball, and an ace is high and not good.

I bet here without looking at my final card any further. The reason is that if it’s a 3, I have made a 7 low and want to get called. If I paired the deuce or hit an ace, I want my opponent to throw away a better hand, like a king or a queen. So, it’s a cross between a value-bet and a bluff.

This is great for mixing up my play, and it wards off someone picking up tells on me. After all, if I don’t know for sure if I have a big hand or a busted one, someone can’t very well pick up a tell on me. Anyway, my opponent calls me, and I look down at a pair of deuces. I knuckle, and he announces that he has a queen low, which I indicate is good by shaking my head.

He then turns over 2-5-7-A-Q! (Remember, an ace is high and bad.) This genius had drawn to an ace low and made it! So, the only card that I could have caught and lost with was the deuce. If I had caught an ace, I would have won. He thought we were playing ace-to-five lowball, in which the ace is low. If he had known what game we were playing, he certainly wouldn’t have called me on the end, and wouldn’t even have gone to the end.

Well, if that wasn’t bad enough, within 30 minutes, this hand comes down. The game is now ace-to-five lowball, which the guy thought that we were playing before. The same guy raises from the button, and I three-bet him. I draw two and he draws three.

My hand is A-A-2-5-K. The extra ace is relevant, because that’s one fewer ace that he can catch. Now, I catch yet another ace and a bad card. I draw two and he draws two.

On the second draw, I catch two fives, giving me A-2-5-5-5. Now, trip fives is not a good hand in lowball, but inasmuch as that leaves only one 5 for him to catch (and only one ace, also), it’s going to be awfully hard for him to make a hand. So, I go pat on the last draw and bluff; this is what’s known as a “snow.”

He calls my bluff, and I rap the table. He doesn’t do anything, so I say, “I think you got it.” He still won’t turn his hand over, and crazy Mike walks over to see what’s going on. I do a little advertising by showing my trip fives, hoping to lure Mike into the game (it didn’t work), and the whole table was astonished at what happened next.

The guy says, “I scoop it,” and turns over 2-3-7-8-2, a pair of deuces! I immediately think to myself, what does he mean, he scoops it? It’s a one-winner game, not a split-pot game. As everyone is laughing at him, he explains that he already had the badugi made before the last draw. Well, that’s nice, but it doesn’t mean anything in this game — except that it made him call a pat hand with a pair of deuces in lowball. As I said, this could only happen to me.

Todd Brunson has been a professional poker player for more than 20 years. While primarily a cash-game player, he still has managed to win 18 major tournaments, for more than $3.5 million. He has won one bracelet and cashed 25 times at the World Series of Poker. You can play with Todd online at DoylesRoom.com or live at his tournament, The Todd Brunson Montana Poker Challenge, in Bigfork, Montana. Check his website, ToddBrunson.com, for details.