Forget bad beats ...

I like this thread. We started one similar to this not too long ago, where I told my story about the King-high straight flush I caught in Biloxi last year for about $600.

Beat a guy who caught a boat on the turn: 9s full of deuces. I can still see the shell-shocked, I-just-got-hit-between-the-eyes-with-a-2-by-4 look he had.

 

He's checking his overpair to let Hellmuth catch something.

Which doesn't explain mucking on the river.

For fuck's sake, what did you put him on with a big preflop raise that beat your kings when a six hits?

I guess he can say he put him on pocket sixes, but, fuck, I'd never lay that down.

 

I thought we were talking about covering youth and recreational sports. That's a pretty bad beat.

 

Still doesn't make sense when called, checked, and called the $17K....why go all that way when it's only 40K more? Still would have left him with over 20K.

 

If it was just about the money, he wouldn't have laid it down. Mike's an ego guy, as is Phil. Remember the fact he turned his cards over? He wanted to show that he is such a great player that he laid Kings down. He thought he was beat, and he wanted to let everyone at the table know he was smart enough to make the laydown. The probem is he was wrong, and in showing his Kings, it made it about ten times worse to drop the hand to a 7 deuce bluff.

 

The 7-2 game makes everything a lot more interesting......some of the old school players probably wouldn't go for it, but Laak, Hellmuth, Ivey.....they all love it.

 

I don't know, Doyle is heavily into the prop bets. I think they all love it, kind of like the straddle, which I still don't completely understand.

 

Final table of a 90-player online tournament last night, nine remain. I'm acting second after the person to my right calls the bet. With KK, I just double the bet because I want a call. Folds around to the small blind, a tight player who triples my bet. Fold, fold, and the decision is on me. Can't lay it down, so I just call. Q-J-x on the flop. He checks. I bet about 60 percent of the pot. He goes all in. I announce my fold of kings. He shows his aces.

 

pp, you're likely right. And that's where people have gotten too smart for their own damn good.

Sure, it takes a truly great player to get a correct read and lay down kings if they aren't winners. But how many times in someone's career will it be the correct move to lay down kings with no ace on the board and plenty of your money in the pot? Once? Maybe twice?

And good players like the straddle because it forces early action and gives them information without revealing anything about their hand.

 

My best hand ever was a bad beat.
3s in hand, drew one on the flop. Got one on the turn and watched a woman across from me fill in a straight flush. Took in almost 6k of the nearly 12k Bad Beat Pot.

 

And that's the rub with Mikey. He would rather drop the cash he already misplayed into the pot, all the while making people think he's smart. That's one of those situations where you have to say, "I bet you have me, but I can't lay it down." Players like Negranu will pay off players just to get information, they don't care how bad they look in the process. Mike just wants people to think he's smarter than he actually is. I actually like the guy to some extent, maybe I feel bad for the perception people have for him. He just gives me reasons, just about every time I see him on TV, to rethink my draw to him.

 

I don't know if I'm any kind of poker player. I play my best hands and try to make some things happen from time to time or when the need arises...

Playing an online 90-person SNG, made it through to the final table, playing heads-up vs. one other guy; I've got 2/3 of the chips or so. He's dealt a low pair (no more than 5's), I get like J-4. Flop comes J-J-J. I figure if I make any kind of bet, I'll give away what I've got, so I check. He makes a pretty big bet, understandably. I raise to get him all-in and win my first-ever tournament.

99.5 percent luck, of course, but I like to think I at least thought through my options.