When I Was A Donk – Shawn Cunix

Shawn Cunix

By day, Shawn Cunix is the owner of a luxury car dealership, and by night, he’s a successful poker pro with three World Poker Tour final tables on his resume. The Columbis, Ohio native has more than $2.25 million in live tournament cashes, including a third-place score in the 2014 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open for $748,313.

Cunix also owns a WPT title, having won the 2012 Jacksonville stop at bestbet for $400,600. Cunix also has wins at the Five-Star World Poker Classic, Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown and Hollywood Poker Open.

Here, Cunix talks about a bluff gone wrong.

This was several years ago and I still think about it all the time. It was actually a hand in a World Poker Tour event at Bellagio with Kevin Eyster, who won the event in 2015.

It was really early on in the tournament so everyone was still deep. I don’t remember all of the details, but to sum it up, we got to the river and I had a busted draw. I ended up making a pretty bold play and moved all in.

Now, this was a huge portion of his stack at the time, but he called me with… third pair. I don’t mind busting out of the tournament or even re-entering for another $10,000, but to get called by third pair, that really upset me.

I wasn’t mad at him, of course, it was a great read on his part. I just never in a million years believed I could get called in that spot by anything other than a top-five hand, so when he turned over third pair, I was furious at myself because I knew I must have given something away.

I was also very embarrassed, because it was like he read my soul. It’s a vulnerable feeling to be read so clearly like that. I even asked him afterwards, only joking a little, if I had some sort of tell. The truth is that I was still a little new to big poker tournaments at that time, and he could probably see some nerves. ♠