A Most Interesting Online Poker Hand
written by BeatTheFish.com
...Fishy says, "He definitely did not
read our Beat the Fish Tutorial."
Usually, I'm the one telling the bad
beat stories. "Oh, man. This major tuna drew out on my pocket
Aces with pocket sixes on the river!" and other similar exclamations
have graced my lips on more than one occasion. Keeping that in mind,
I love to tell the following story and it has become one of my
favorite all-time poker hands. It isn't special because of the
moderate amount of money involved but because I haven't seen
anything like it before or since. So, I give you my own hand history
in as best order as I can remember it...
It was later in the evening and I sat
down at a $1/2 No-Limit Hold'em online table to pass a bit of time
and perhaps pick up a few bucks. I bought in for the maximum of $200
and let a couple of rounds pass me by to bring my stack down to
about $190 or so. I was dealt into the next big blind with:
 
Of course, this was a very weak
holding and I clicked the "Check/Fold" button to automatically let
go of the hand to any raise. Instead, 4 players limped in and I just
checked it down preflop. So, 5-way action to the flop, which brings
me the nut straight of:
  
Instead of making the smart play and
betting out to hope to catch someone with an Ace, I decided to
slowplay the hand. I checked and, unfortunately for me, everyone
checked it around. There were a lot of cards that would severely
diminish my hand, and one of them hit on the turn:
While this wasn't completely
crippling, it put a bit of fear into me. Many questionable online
players will call with Ace-rag preflop and may very well have
slowplayed their two pair on the flop. Even if one of them had tried
to trap on the flop with A-K, I knew that my luck would bring a pair
on the board to give them a full house. There were also now 2
diamonds on the board giving those limpers a flush draw. Knowing
that I had to protect my hand at this point with several possible
draws, I bet out about $15 into a $10 pot. Only one player from
early position immediately to my left called me. "Oh, great," I'm
thinking. "I should've bet it on the flop". The river did indeed
pair on the end and brought the:
When I saw the board pair I
immediately gave up on my hand in my head. I knew that if he stuck
around with a 5 (which isn't entirely unlikely from low-stakes
online players) or any Ace I was in big trouble. I was so worried
about the full house that I didn't even realize the draws that I
still had. As I was about to check the hand down, I noticed the Hand
Strength area of the screen said "Straight Flush - A2345". What?!
Sure enough, I looked up at the board and realized that I hit the
absolute nuts. It looked like this:
Of course, I had the 2-4 of diamonds.
Instead, I bet out a small amount of $20 - half of the pot. I did
want to make some money on the end and I wasn't sure if he had a
strong enough hand to bet more with. To my great pleasure, he
reraised me to $50. Of course, I just went all in at that point. He
had me covered and called me. He turned over:
 
For four Aces! Wow! Of course, he
immediately left the table after than brutal beat. Before I even
realized that I had won a pot close to $400 I first marveled at how
badly he played the hand. Let's review the mistakes that he made
here:
1. Not raising preflop.
This is the worst mistake of the hand. There is no way that I would
call any sort of raise with such a weak hand from the big blind. He
could have completely avoided this bad beat of a lifetime by simply
not getting greedy with his pocket Aces.
2. Not betting out on the
flop. He now has a set of Aces, but he shouldn't overlook the 3
and the 5. Since both blinds had stayed in, they might already have
the straight (which I did) or could be drawing to one using just one
card. Why give anyone a free draw to beat you?
3. Not raising me on the
turn. This was actually one of the better plays that he made in
the hand. He has such a huge hand that he wants to give a free card
to give someone a straight, flush, or full house, but he could have
actually disguised his hand a bit with a nice raise here. He had me
beat at this point and probably could have gotten me to commit all
my money.
What this should teach you is that
you always raise your Aces! This hand couldn't be a better testament
to that. While I won't draw out on him 999 times out of 1,000 with
four Aces, maybe he could've gotten someone else to commit their
money while I immediately fold preflop. At the same time, I made a
mistake by not betting out on the flop. Players, especially online
players, slowplay their hands too often. I had him beat on the flop
and if it wasn't for an extremely lucky draw I would have handed him
the fourth ace or someone else a better hand.
It definitely is fun to put on the
bad beats for a change and while we usually remember the awful ones
that we were on the short end of, we should remember that we
occasionally induce our own fishy goodness upon others. The most
painful part of the story? NO BAD BEAT JACKPOT!!!!
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