Phil Misreads His Hand, Too!

In “Never Give Up” (see page 16) I wrote about the Bellagio’s Five Star World Poker Classic’s $1,000 buy-in pot-limit Holdem tournament in December 2002, and how I ran $300, under the gun, up to $10,000 in one round, when the blinds were $100-$200. What a nice round of poker for me! I then told you that I eventually made the final table with the chip lead (over $60,000 in chips) along with Howard Lederer (who was a short stack), Daniel Negreanu, Jeff Shulman (short stack), Dennis Waterman (who finished number one in Card Player magazine’s pot-limit Holdem poker games category in 2002), and unknown Brian Green.

Jeff, Daniel, and Howard finished eighth, seventh, and sixth. Howard later told me, “I was very surprised that this random group played so well. Usually, when I don’t know the players at a table they make a lot of mistakes.” Howard is right about this. The players at the final table that day were playing some great poker event.

When we reached the final three players, Dennis and Brian asked me if I wanted to make a deal. I looked down and realized that I have $150,000 of the $276,000 in chips at the table. I declined, but I did realize that a deal would have netted me over $40,000, when first, second, and third were $53,500, $26,700 and $13,300, respectively.

As play continued, I was confident that I would eventually prevail. At this point , a very interesting hand came up between Brian and Dennis. Dennis raised it up with Ad-9d, making it $12,000 to go, and Brian reraised it, maing it $24,000 more with 8-8. Dennis studied forever, and then made a very unorthodox move: he just called the bet. After a flop of Js-6d-2h, Brian bet Dennis’s last $20,000, and Dennis “went into the tank” (he studied for at least two minutes poker basics).

Finally, Dennis called the bet with his A-9 high low poker, no pair, no draw! Dennis was now all-in, but when the dealer dealt off a nine on fourth street, Dennis wound up winning the pot. Was Dennis’s call here terrible? No, it wasn’t, but if he felt A-9 was good, then, in my opinion, he should have put the money in before the flop. At this point, I thought, “There’s no way that this miracle ‘hit’ of Dennis’s could ever come back and bite me, could it? Imagine the parlay: Dennis is all-in in bad shape, Brian has only $29,000 left. There’s no way I’ll end up finishing third and get only $13,000.”

A few hands later, Brian moved all-in with A-K, Dennis called with A-7 suited, and I called with 2-2. "rian survived when a king hit the board on the flop. A little while later, Dennis made a straight against me on the last card in a key pot, and now I was in third place in the chip count.

With "rian beginning to raise a ton of pots, I knew it was just a matter of time before I picked him off in a huge pot high limit action. So with the blinds at $2,000-$4,000, the following hand came up. I limped in the small blind with Ah-4h, and "rian raised $8,000. I called quickly, and the flop came down 5s-6h-Qh; I had flopped the nut-flush draw. I checked, and then "rian checked. The fourth card was the 10h, and now I had the nut flush! How to play it, though? Perhaps a small bet that looked like a bluff? Yes!

I bet out $8,000, trying to make it look like a bluff, and "rian fell right into my trap. He said, “Raise the size of the pot.” As he put his chips into the pot, I thought he had me covered, so I moved all-in lighting fast, and he said call (if I raised, it was than $10,000). He flipped up his two black jacks as I said, “Nut flush.” His face hit the floor. He had been overplaying his hands against me for tow hours, and now he was drawing dead for all the money, just as I had foreseen!

Now I had all the chips, and I was wondering how he could have put all of his money in two black jacks with this board, when it hit me. I had the Ad in my hand, not the Ah! He had raised me $40,000 on the turn, virtually all of my chips, and I didn’t even look back at my hand! I had just called off all of my chips with nothing! Talk about bad play poker card games : here I was thinking how badly "rian had played the hand, when it was I who had misread my hand Zoinks!

Luckily, it turned out that I was still drawing live to a heart or an ace, and I was thinking, “I deserve to hit it, since both of these guys have outdrawn me, and I’ve played so great today.” (“Deserve” is a concept that someone wiser than I should grapple with. In fact, I probably “deserved” to finish third for misreading my hand!) Anyway, the last card games was a blank, and I was eliminated and got $13,300.

I kept thinking, I would have made over $40,000 had I taken that deal! Well, I didn’t have anyone to blame but myself this time. I wasn’t super unlucky; I had just flat out misread my spooky hand.