My Most Memorable Hand of Poker

I think most poker players have a particular poker hand that is burned into their minds forever. Mine happened during the World Poker Tour invitational event at Commerce Casino two years ago. More than 500 people had entered the tournament and we were down to the final 45 remaining players at the time this hand occurred.

I had been running good and playing well. I was the chipleader at the time. The tournament’s second chipleader — a well-known pro who I’ll call Player A — was at my table and had been very aggressive, raising more than one-third of the hands he was dealt. The blinds were 3,000-6,000 with a 500 ante, and I was in the big blind. I had about 700,000 and Player A had about 650,000. Player A open-raised to 15,000 from middle position. It was folded to me and I looked down at the 6-2 of diamonds and decided to call 9,000 more.

The flop came 10-4-2 with two hearts and a spade. I checked and Player A bet 25,000. I wasn’t ready to give up on my hand at this point so I called. The turn card was the king of clubs. I checked again and Player A bet 55,000. I thought for quite a while before making the call. The river card was the queen of diamonds. Once again I checked and Player A bet 125,000. This time, I almost beat him into the pot with my call.

Player A turned up the 5-3 of hearts, a busted straight-flush draw. With 21 outs against me on the turn and the river, I had dodged a huge bullet and the dealer pushed me the pot. I’ll admit I was very happy to win a pot containing almost 400,000 with a pair of deuces on a board that showed 10-4-2-K-Q. There was dead silence for about 20 seconds and then one of the young professional players at the table yelled out, “Wow, that’s a call I’ll never forget!”

So what went through my head when I made the calls? First of all, preflop with the blinds and the antes, the pot contained 37,500 so I was getting a good price to call 9,000 more, plus the effective stack size was 650,000. Additionally Player A had been very active and had shown a propensity for raising preflop with a very wide range. On the flop, I knew he would make a continuation bet regardless of what he had, so I think it was an easy call. I didn’t much care for the king on the turn. Lots of things went through my head. This was a perfect scare card for him to bet again. Prior to this hand, on the turn, I had never seen him bet more than twice the size of his flop bet, so his bet was a little larger than usual. I interpreted this as weakness and thought that he was trying to blow me out of the pot. I took a very long time before making the call.
My call on the river was very easy. Here is my reasoning: We had been playing together for quite a while and I hadn’t seen him triple barrel with a one-pair hand. He had previously even checked an overpair on the river with a non-threatening board.

Therefore, in order to bet this river, I thought that he had to have two pair or better or complete air. He could have checked if he had a pair such as 9-9, A-10, K-J, etcetera, since he would have some showdown value. I snap-called. The television cameras were there and recorded it since it was a very big pot at that time in the tournament. I hoped it would air, but instead, they showed the hand were I took a horrendous beat to bust out in 13th-place. I love poker!

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Linda Johnson is a member of the Poker Hall of Fame and the Women in Poker Hall of Fame. She is a WSOP gold-bracelet winner and teaches WPT Boot Camp. Linda is available to host tournaments, seminars, and corporate events. You can cruise with her on a Card Player Cruises vacation…see www.cardplayercruises.com.