My 15 Most Memorable Poker Hands (Part 1)

I recently decided to make a countdown list of the most memorable 15 hands that I have played to this point. The criteria to what makes a hand memorable is extremely vague; it just needs to be a hand that sticks in my memory for one reason or another. The hand might have been an important turning point in a tournament, a hand that I thought I played very well, a crushing loss, or obviously a big win. If nothing else, I hope that it makes for an interesting read!

Hand #15 - Pocket rockets! - Around New Year's of 2006 - $1 MTT - PokerStars

After watching ESPN coverage of the WSOP in 2003, 2004 and 2005, I was itching to figure out how to play No Limit Hold 'em. I started playing play money on Party Poker, and my Brother-in-law finally got the nerve to deposit some money to play for real. He was really enjoying it, and I wanted to play for real money as well. My Dad had spoken to my Uncle Mick, who was a recreational grinder, and he recommended that we buy-in to PokerStars instead. My Dad put some money on PokerStars and called me to come over for his first tournament, a $1 MTT. He wanted me to play it, so I sat in while he watched and we mulled over decisions together. This is actually not legal to do (as we found out much later), but since neither of us had ever played a hand of real money poker online, and I hadn't even created an account yet, we figured that it was fine.

I don't remember any exact details of the tournament itself, but I think it had around 1500 players. I actually had done alright and had some chips with around 300 players left or so. I was dealt A♠ A♦ and I raised it up. I was a total novice and so I don't remember chipstacks or the blind level, but I do remember that I was called by two players. The flop came A♥ 5♠ 3♠ and I checked to slowplay. The player two to my left bet and the other player folded. I called and the turn was the 5♣. Awesome! A full house, so an unlikely straight or rivered flush can't win. I checked again, and he checked behind. The river was the 9♦ and I bet. The villain raised and I re-raised all-in with the nut full house on the A-5-3-5-9 board. The villain called with 5♥ 5♦ for quads to knock me out of the tournament. Though this hand may not seem that interesting, it is memorable for me because it was my first real money MTT, and I remember sitting and wondering how anyone makes it to the end of a tournament when it's so easy to run into a monster hand.

Hand #14 - My first big money cash - 5/26/2007 - $10 Deep Stack MTT - PokerStars

Back when I had free time, I used to love playing the $10 Deep Stack tournaments on PokerStars. They started at 9:00 AM on Saturdays and Sundays. Players started with 5,000 chips, blinds started at 10/20 and went up every 30 minutes. The tournaments usually drew somewhere around 1,000 runners and took about 12 hours to complete. They also only paid about 10% of the field, so the money bubble would usually take about six hours to burst.

This was my third Deep Stack and I had cashed in all three. The tournament drew 903 runners (81 paid), and we were down to the final 11. 11th and 10th were paid $90.31 and 1st was around $2,000. The chip stacks at my table were as follows: Raven93 - 537,418 (47BBs), Joriz - 505,040 (42BBs), cbond016 (me) - 448,510 (37BBs), smoker1984 - 287,656 (24BBs), Fishizzle - 281,447 (23BBs), and BriNkS DuDe - 227,594 (19BBs). There had not been much action since going down to 12 players remaining, as most players were trying to make it to the final table. The blinds were 6,000/12,000 w/ a 600 ante.

BriNkS DuDe was UTG and he raised 4X to 48,000. I was on the button with A♦ K♥ and I called. With my current experience level, this would be an easy jam, but I had only been playing poker for a little over a year, and I was afraid to gamble half of my stack all at once and maybe miss the final table. The blinds folded and we saw a flop of K♠ 5♣ 4♦. BriNkS led out for 36,000, and I raised to 108,000. I expected him to fold, and when he jammed all-in for 70,994 more I almost had a panic attack! This was not the stage of the tournament where anyone was making crazy plays, so his shove almost had to be for value. I looked to see if I could find a fold, but I knew that I just had to make the call. BriNkS showed K♣ T♦, for top pair with an inferior kicker. I held my breath as the turn and river came J♠ 3♠, and I had scored the KO to bring my chip stack to 696,504 on the final table bubble! We ended up chopping 5 ways for $880, which was a huge boost to my $200 bankroll!

Hand 13 - Bizarre Line - 4/21/2019 - $10 Turbo MTT - Ignition

In preparation for playing the Big 50 at the 2019 WSOP, I ramped up my poker activities and buy-in level. Then I went on a heater. I had just finished 3rd in a $3 Super Turbo MTT for $79.53 (only other tournament of the evening) and I was starting to get short in the mid-stages of a $10 Turbo (665 runners), with 26,900 chips at the 1,000/2,000/200 level. The player in the HJ seat raised to 4,000 out of his 22,150 stack. I was in the BB with 8♠ 7♦ and made the call for 2,000 more. The flop came 6♠ 2♠ 2♦, and I checked, planning to fold to his bet. But the villain checked behind and the T♠ came on the turn. I checked, and the villain checked it back again. Weird. The river was the unlikely 9♣ to give me a straight. I bet 3,333, and to my surprise the villain jammed for 17,950 total. The only hand that made any real sense to me was a 6-6 that he flopped a boat with and decided to slowplay. However, when I river an unlikely straight with that table action, my opponent is just going to have to show me the winning hand, and I'll chalk it up to a cooler. So I called and the villain showed K♣ Q♣ for a horrifically played bluff to bust in 220th place. This boosted my stack to 51,250, which allowed me to make a serious deep run in the tournament (more on that later).