What wasn't said

OK, this is the last time--today, anyway--that I'm going to pinch a story from the good folks at PokerNews and use it as fodder for my blog.

Not the Nuts, But Definitely Nutty

Five WSOP bracelets tend to win one a bit of respect. Or fear. Or what the
French call... I don't know what.

Allen Cunningham raised to 1,200 from the button and the player in the big
blind called. Both checked the 2d-10d-10h flop. The turn was the 2h. The player
in the BB bet 2,200, and Cunningham called.

The river brought the Kd. The BB player checked, and Cunningham bet 4,500.
His opponent called.

Cunningham showed 8d-7d for the rivered flush. His opponent turned over
Jd-10c for tens full of deuces. Not too much out there that could beat
that.

After having been up around 60,000, Cunningham now has about 45,000.

You know how sometimes you hear people say that they preferred cinematic love scenes before everything got all graphic and explicit, because it was sexier to imagine what happened? Well, that's sort of why I love how this little story is written (besides the funny line about the French). It's a pretty insignificant hand, in terms of the progress of the tournament as a whole, or either of the players. But it tells the reader loads about this particular opponent and how players generally view poker superstars like Cunningham. And all of that is in what isn't said in the post.

I know that some of my readers don't play poker (they're people who know me personally, and, bless their hearts, they slog through all the stupid stuff about poker just because of who has written it), so let me explain what the PN blogger cleverly left unsaid, secure in the knowledge that basically only die-hard poker junkies would be reading it, and that they would be able to figure it out for themselves.

There were only three hands that Cunningham could have that would have his opponent beaten: pocket kings (for kings full of tens), K-10 (for tens full of kings), and pocket deuces (for quads). It was, objectively speaking, pretty darn unlikely that Cunningham held any of those. His opponent should have been, oh, maybe 90% confident that he had a better hand than Cunningham did, or at worst that they both had a 10 and would chop the pot.

Most players in this situation, against most opponents, would raise at the end, rather than just call. They would hope to get paid off by somebody holding a 2 for deuces full of tens, or by a flush. That this guy did not do so is the clever implication of the "definitely nutty" in the post's title. It is also what lies behind that language about the kind of respect and/or fear that Cunningham is able to generate in other players. Sure, against most players you'd raise, but this is Allen freakin' Cunningham!

As it turns out, a raise probably wouldn't have been profitable. I'd wager my last dollar that if the guy had raised, Cunningham's cards would have hit the muck without another single chip being put into the pot. You just can't think that a small flush is good when there are two ways an opponent could have quads, and when he only needs to be holding one lousy 10 or 2 to have a full house. Cunningham took his shot (perhaps hoping that his opponent would call with just an ace to accompany the two pairs on the board, or maybe a pocket pair to make a better two pairs than were on the board--and just maybe he could bluff a guy holding a 2 into folding), but I'm confident he would have folded to even a minimum raise.

Of course, his opponent couldn't know that when it mattered.

My compliments to the PN team members for (1) noticing this hand and what it implied about both of the players involved, and (2) writing it in a way that trusted the readers' intelligence to read all of the juicy stuff between the lines.