For those who wait patiently…..

Technically speaking I could put this post under the ‘Variance’ banner. But in reality it is a brag post…..lol. However there are also some discussion points in how my opponent played the hand.

To give some background, I was up 2 buy-ins when this hand happened. I had scooped a few big pots but also had the usual run of coolers and suckouts that I have had recently. Part of the brag is that I had wanted to finish the session about 10 minutes before this hand happened and had closed down 4 out of the 6 tables I was playing. The reason I kept the other 2 up was because I had identified a yummy donkey who was big stacked at the table where I was also big stacked. He was playing loose and passive preflop, but aggressive post-flop with a lot of bluffs. Indeed, most of my stack had been acquired by picking off his bluffs. Anyway, recently a lot of my sets have been hammered by players calling large bets with flush draws and hitting. The villain hit his flush  with this hand but……………………

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $0.10 BB (6 handed)

BB ($25.80)
UTG ($4.80)
MP ($11.20)
CO ($9.50)
Button ($7.45)
Hero ($27.45)

Preflop: Hero is SB with , .
1 fold, MP raises to $0.3, 1 fold, Button calls $0.30, Hero calls $0.25, BB calls $0.20.

Flop: ($1.20) , , (4 players)
Hero bets $0.5, BB raises to $1.4, MP folds, Button folds, Hero raises to $3.5, BB calls $2.10.

Turn: ($8.20) (2 players)
Hero bets $6, BB calls $6.

River: ($20.20) (2 players)
Hero bets $17.65 (All-In), BB calls $16 (All-In).

Final Pot: $52.20

Results in white below:
Hero has 2h 2s (full house, twos full of fives).
BB has 4d Ad (flush, ace high).
Outcome: Hero wins $53.85.

So he hit his flush card giving him the nut flush, but it was a beautiful flush card for me. Was it a bad call on the river by  the villain? In his situation, given the bad run I have had recently with so much already in the pot I probably would have called too. I could have had a smaller flush or even an AA or KK. But it was a horrible  call on the turn. The way I was betting I was clearly ahead at this point. I put 6$ into an $8 pot giving him pot odds of 1.3:1. He had 9 outs with 44 cards left (about 4:1 odds = ~20%). He either had to push hoping to get me off a high pair, or fold. As it turns out, of course I would have called had he pushed.

Just out of interest, this pot gave me a 2 and a half buy-in win, however it represents a 5 buy-in turn around, which was 1/8th of my whole bankroll at the time! That is, if he happened to have had a higher full house, I would have 5 buy-ins less than what I do now.

The other comment to make is that this hand illustrates very nicely why you should always play with the maximum buy-in. You can’t win this amount in a pot if you always buy-in short and then leave when you get up a bit.