My WPT London and Dinner Bad Beat - Part II

I lost close to a quarter of my stack in that hand, and shortly afterwards I lost another quarter. I raised on the button with Ts 8s, was called by both blinds, and the flop came A-K-3 with two spades. Some people might wonder why I would decide to check this flop, as it seems a great opportunity to represent the ace and pick up the pot, with a flush draw to fall back on if someone calls. There’s certainly nothing wrong with betting here, but instead I chose to check for a few different reasons.

Firstly, I’d been raising a lot in late position, and they weren’t the type of players who would have assumed that I had the Ace just because I’d raised from the button, after the rest of the table had passed (one of them was the Scandinavian kid from the K-8 hand). 



Secondly, by checking the flop last to speak there’s a good chance that I’m going to get to see the river for free or else very cheaply, and I can always try a bluff to pick up the pot at a later stage if I don’t hit a spade.



Thirdly, if I do hit a spade then there’s a chance I can win a big pot, as I don’t think they would have expected me to raise pre-flop then check a flush draw on the flop.



Maybe I over-thought the hand and should have kept things simple, but I was happy with how the plan was going when the 4s hit the turn and the small blind, a fairly aggressive young English player led out for 1k.

The BB passed and instead of just calling, I raised to 3k. This might seem odd too, but I really thought this would make it look more like I was bluffing than had a made hand and I was sure that he would call me down with an ace or maybe even a king.

I also thought that there was a chance that if he had nothing he might 4-bet me, thinking that my 3-bet was just a re-bluff.

Instead, he called and the 4 paired on the river. He checked to me and I thought I had to try to squeeze a bit more value out of it on the river. I’d rather the board hadn’t paired but there was still no reason for me to think I was winning, and he can easily think I was following through on a bluff, and pay me off with an Ace. I bet 4.5k and he check-raised me to 11k.

I hadn’t been expecting this at all, but I think if he had thought I was weak he’d have tried to bluff me off it before, rather than try a check-raise bluff on the river.



After thinking, I decided that he either had A-4 or 4-3 suited and had made the full house on the river or else he had a higher flush on the turn and had slow-played it because he thought there was a good chance I was bluffing and wanted to let me fire another bluff at the end.

A-4 or 4-3 would be favourite in my eyes, and I think they would be consistent with how he played the hand. I’d guess if he had two pair on the turn, he’d have just called my raise, suspecting that he was winning but not wanting to build the pot too much just in case I had it.

He didn’t tell me exactly what he had after I passed, but he led me to believe that I’d made a good pass.



I stayed on in London after I bust, as I’m playing the World Open on Monday. When I started playing in these TV shootout tournaments the standard was pretty terrible. Now you’re lucky if you have one soft spot at your table.

I haven’t even been that lucky and have a table consisting of seven pros and myself. I’d obviously rather have an easy heat, but I’m kind of looking forward to the challenge of playing with these guys. My table includes Peter Jetten, who I beat heads up to win the 10K PLO bracelet two years ago.

I’ve never played Hold’em with Peter but he’s regarded as one of the best no-limit cash players in the world. I also have James Akenhead and Neil Channing to contend with, and the other players are all top pros too.



It’s without doubt the toughest table I’ve ever played at and I’m going to have to play well, while getting lucky to stand a chance of winning. Hopefully I’ve gotten enough bad luck out of the way over dinner in Donegal!