Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Next best

I'm watching a "Poker After Dark" cash game from June that I had not previously seen. Phil Laak starts with 8h-9h, flops trips, turns a full house. Phil Hellmuth calls Laak's ever-larger bets on every street, including $22,200 on the river, losing something like $37,000 on the hand--with ace high.

After stewing for a few minutes, Hellmuth finally mutters, "I should have played back, actually."

At this, Gus Hansen pipes up: "Well, at least you found the second-best option."

1 comment:

Matthew Yauch said...

I read Gus's book "Every Hand Revealed" (which helped my tournament game tremendously, especially short handed play) and I seem to remember him mentioning how even when his numerous semi-bluffs didn't pay off(with either a fold or hitting the nuts), he learned the second best way to play the hand.