"Nice call with the 6-high"

There are at least four ways that I measure the success of a poker day: (1) How much money did I win or lose? (2) How well did I play? (3) Did I have a good time? (4) Did I get any good stories to write about? Last night's back-to-back sessions at the Luxor and Excalibur were exceptionally good by that last metric, this being the fourth post I've gotten out of them. I think my record is five stories from one session (check the archives for July 28, 2007, my first-ever time at the Palms).

Luxor. An early-position player puts in a substantial raise. It smells to high heaven of jacks or queens. This is a player I've identified as tight-aggressive, but inexperienced--the kind who will have a hard time getting away from a big pocket pair even when he's beat. This makes him the perfect target for a sneaky play. As luck would have it, I'm on the button, and position is huge when attempting to take down a premium hand.

Limit hold'em is a game where you try to have small edges many, many times, and chip away gradually at opponents' stacks. No-limit hold'em, by contrast, is a game in which the object is to swipe away another player's entire stack in one fell swoop. I live or die by looking for and creating such situations.

I held the 4-6 of spades. This is a pretty good hand for taking on a big pocket pair. If it hits in the way I need it to, with two pair or a straight or flush or a big draw, it will often do so with a flop that looks very safe to a player--especially a less-experienced one--sitting on a big pair. So I call. It's just the two of us in the hand.

The flop is a red 6 and the 2-3 of spades. I have flopped top pair with a straight-flush draw, on the button, with a board that will look completely non-threatening to a player with a big pair sitting under his card protector. I can't reasonably ask for it to get any better than this. If he has just two big cards, such as A-K or A-Q, I'm already ahead. Even if he has a big pair, I win with any spade for a flush, a 4 for two pairs, a 5 for a straight, or a 6 for trips, giving me 16 outs twice. That makes me a statistical favorite to win.

He bets. I put in a smallish raise, hoping he'll think that I'm just trying to weakly counter a continuation bet or that I have just a flush draw, in either of which cases he would be correct to come back over the top with a reraise. He does just what I hope, and moves all-in. I beat him into the pot with my chips. By the time I get my cards exposed, the dealer has already put out a red 5 on the turn, clinching my win with a straight. My opponent mucked without showing, so I'm left with my original guess of a big pocket pair. I'd be very surprised if it were anything else, given how he played.

I wouldn't bother telling this story if not for what happened next. After all, though it turned out nicely for me, and exactly the way I had set it up, it's just another hand out of millions of poker hands, and not particularly remarkable or memorable in and of itself.

My opponent had a look of mixed disgust and puzzlement on his face. He asked me directly, "What were you doing?" I thought maybe the hand had played out so fast (the dealer was very quick to whip out the turn and river, determine the winner, and push the pot) that he hadn't had a chance to grasp my situation. I don't usually explain myself, but it seemed to be an honest and non-hostile inquiry, so I pointed out, "I had top pair and both straight and flush draws on the flop." He responded, "Yeah, I see that--but I meant before the flop." Here his voice took on an unmistakable nasty/sarcastic edge: "Nice call with the 6-high."

This situation is virtually identical to one that I described here: http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/08/you-called-raise-with-that.html. In fact, looking back on it, I see that it was another 4-6 suited that won that pot! Maybe I should make that my trademark hand (although the 2-4 still has a special place in my heart; see http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/08/warning-do-not-try-this-at-home.html and http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/07/article-in-card-player-magazine-non.html for that history). This guy was just incapable of recognizing that I took a measured gamble and won. Most of the time, I would miss the flop, have to dump my hand, and he'd profit the $15 call I made before the flop.

Maybe it was an idiotic move; I'm certainly capable of patting myself on the back for things that much better players would say were stupid moves, with convincing explanations of why I was wrong to do them. But as I said after the last 4-6 story, if my opponent really is a more advanced player and I made an objectively bad play, then he should relish having me there, and welcome every knuckleheaded move I make, because in the long run he will profit thereby. Conversely, though, if it was a reasonable and clever play, then he just looks petty and shallow for not being able to recognize it as such. Either way, the nasty comment works against the one spouting it.

I suppose he got a "good" bad-beat story out of the deal: "You wouldn't believe the moron I ran into at the Luxor last night. Everybody should have been able to tell that I had a big pocket pair, and he called me with a six-high, then hit his gutshot straight draw after all the money was in! What a donkey!"

I not only walked away with the chips, but with what I think is a better story.