My 15 Most Memorable Poker Hands (Part 3)

Hand #9 - The Sickest of Suckouts - $2 MTT

Back in 2010, I was riding a frozen wave of cards. Anytime my opponents needed a miracle card in a huge confrontation, they got it. If I had the 2nd nuts, they had the nuts. This led to some intense tilt on my part, which definitely affected my play. I started calling in spots where I knew I was beat just to see how I got "screwed over" this time. I had to take a couple of months away from poker to get my mind back into a good spot again.

The brutalness finally culminated in this doozy of a hand. I had actually started red hot in this tournament, busting three players in the first 20 minutes and increasing my chips from the 1,500 starting stack to just over 10,000. Though I was in the top 10 of a 1000+ player tournament, a player with more chips than me (~11,000) was then seated two to my left. On his first BB, I was on the button and raised to 150 (blinds were 25/50) with T♠ T♥. He called and then shockingly jammed in his entire stack on a flop of T♣ 6♥ 3♦! He was risking about 10,000 chips to win the 325 chips in the pot. I had flopped the absolute nuts and had the easiest call ever. The villain unbelievably showed 7♦ 7♣, which was drawing virtually dead (3%). The turn and river then came 4♦ 5♠ to give the villain a straight and eliminate me from the tournament. I sat in shock for a few seconds, and then for the first and only moment in my life, I punched my monitor.

Hand #8 - Easy Jam - 5/26/2007 - $10 Deep Stack MTT - PokerStars

This hand occurred very early in the third Deep Stack tournament, where I finished 2nd out of 903 runners. It was in fact, the final hand of the second hour of the tournament. I had been playing far too loosely in the early stages and I had burned up some chips. I had regained some of them, but I was still sitting on a stack of 4,205 chips with the blinds at 50/100.

A player in the HJ seat, gjd02 (5,015 chips) raised 7X to 700 chips, and it folded to me in the BB with K♠ K♣. Normally, I would be looking to put in a smallish 3-bet here, to build the pot and keep my opponent on the hook. But when gjd02 made such a large raise, it made his hand look like a very good, but vulnerable hand. He had not gotten out of line this way to this point, so he didn't appear to be a maniac that just raises to whatever. So what would he raise that much with? If he had aces, he would raise smaller to entice some action. I put him on J-J, with a possibility of Q-Q or T-T. With this range, a small re-raise might only allow him to get away on a dangerous flop, so I just pushed all-in, expecting to be called pretty quickly by a hand that I had crushed. The villain actually took a few seconds to call, but call he did, and he showed 9♦ 9♣, which was weaker than I expected. The board ran out Q♣ 3♦ 2♦ A♠ 6♥, and I scored a crucial early double up to 8,460 chips. I got hot from here on, as a half hour later my stack was up to 18,495 and moving upwards!

Hand #7 - Best River in the Deck - 5/30/2019 - $500 Big 50 - 2019 WSOP Event #3

Last summer I was able to play Event #3 at the 2019 WSOP, the Big 50! To celebrate their 50th anniversary, the WSOP held this tournament with 50,000 starting chips and 50 minute levels. About one hour into the tournament, with the blinds at 150/300/300 (BB ante) I was dealt T♦ T♣ UTG+1, and I raised to 900 out of my 51,800 chip stack. Four players called me, the LJ, HJ, CO, and SB). With that number of opponents, I was unlikely to put any more chips into that pot unless I got a really favorable flop.

The flop came Q♠ T♠ 8♠, which was both exciting (flopped a set!) and horrifying (flushes, straights, and draws abound!). After the SB checked, I decided to bet 3,000 into the 5,100 chip pot to charge the draws and get some information on where I was at in the hand. We had not seen a bet that big in the tournament to this point, but it felt necessary with such a big hand on such a wet board. A set is a great hand, but it shrinks up a lot on that kind of board. The LJ folded, but the HJ raised to 6,000. It folded to me and I went into the think tank. The HJ was in his late 50s or 60s and he had limped into about 40% of the pots at the table so far. He had shown no aggression to this point at all. My feeling of the situation was that he probably plays any ace, any suited hand, most connectors, and high cards. I was actually pretty sure that he called with some suited junk and flopped the flush on me. Only 3,000 more into a pot of 14,100 is a good price though, so I called to try to make my full house.

The turn was the 2♥ and I checked to my opponent. He thought for only a few seconds and tossed in another 6,000 chips. Now this was getting serious. With one card to come, I had 10 outs to a full house or quads, and there was a small chance that my opponent was value betting something like a Q-T or semi-bluffing a hand like A♠ Xx (though he seemed like the type to check the nut flush draw there). The pot was 17,100 before his bet, so I needed to call 6,000 into a pot of 23,100. That only requires a 21% chance to win to make calling correct. I am 23% likely to win there if he has the flush, and an outright favorite if he does not have the flush, so it is a pretty easy call.

The dealer then burned and placed the 2♣ on the river, which is one of the prettiest cards I have ever seen. How to play my full house? I could lead out with a bet to make sure of getting more chips into the pot. That is probably what I would do against a savvy player. A good player would recognize the danger the board pairing presents and may check behind, even with a flush. I had to have a big hand to be calling big bets at this early stage after all. But my opponent did not seem to be a particularly thinking player, so I decided to check-raise the river. The villain obliged and bet 10,000 chips after my check. I feigned thinking for 30 seconds or so and then moved all-in for what turned out to be 17,000 more on top. My opponent threw up his hands in frustration, looked resigned, and called with K♠ 5♠, confirming my read. He was out of the tournament and I was now sitting on 95,000 chips, just an hour into the tournament!