Hall of Fame Entry One

A hand from my last trip to AC. Sometimes people just don’t get it.

This is a $1/$2 NL with a max buy-in of $300. UTG has been playing very tight poker. She has accumulated a nice stack of about $500. UTG+1 has been playing stupid poker, he lost his first $300, re-bought for $300 more, and only has $100 left. I am on the button and I have about $500. The table has been a little bit crazy. Pre-flop, any bet less than $20 is getting called 4 or 5 way, so $20 has been the standard raise to get people out pre-flop.

UTG raises to $20. There is no doubt that she has a strong hand because she has been playing ultra tight and now she is raising big from UTG. UTG+1 calls. There are two other callers, and the action comes to me. I am holding QQ. I re-raise to $80. UTG calls and UTG+1 calls, leaving $20 sitting in front of him. There is now $280 in the pot.

The flop is an ace and two rags. UTG bets $80 and we both fold. I am pretty sure that she has AK. She shows her hand, and sure enough she does have AK.

This is where I have to laugh. After she shows her cards, UTG+1 decides to show his too. He flips over pocket 4’s. He is a little sheepish. The table stares at him in disbelief. Remember that after this call, he only had $20 left in his stack. He looks around at the strange looks he is getting and says, “I was trying to catch a set, but if I missed my set, I was done with this hand.” My jaw drops! Are you kidding me. I look down at the 4 little red chips sitting in front of him, the tattered remnants of his stack, and I have to hold back from laughing. I am in shock. I finally gain my composure and manage to get some words out. “Bad luck, man,” I say.

How stupid was this play. Let’s review. He knows that UTG is very strong. He knows that I probably have big pockets. He should know that he is basically dominated this hand. He admits he is dominated by saying that unless he caught a set, he was done with it. Now, at the time he calls the re-raise by me and the call by UTG, there is $220 in the pot. He is calling $60 more. The odds of catching his set are 8-1. The pot is paying 3.6-1. About the worst call ever! Even implied odds say he can only get $20 more out of each of us. So that’s $260 in the pot when risking $60 which is only 4.3-1. This is what made his call so very bad. He had no stack left. He wasn’t getting any worthwhile implied odds. The EV of this play (as he explained he was playing it) is -$22.8. Just awful.

But, what is worse is that he then claims that he will NOT continue with this hand unless he catches a set, which he proves by folding when UTG leads out. He folds with only 4 red chips in front of him and $360 in the pot, $300 of which he can get. Even if I fold, that pot is paying 15-1 on his last $20. If I call, he gets 16-1. He is still only about an 10-1 dog in this hand if she does have AK and there is still a chance that she missed totally. It is an automatic call. But he folds! An absolutely terrible call pre-flop and an even worse fold after the flop. All in all it was one of the worst plays I have seen in a long time.

It wasn’t a failed bluff or a missed read, or a slow play gone bad. It was simply a fundamental lack of knowledge about poker. Every time I have played down at the casinos, half of the table seems to lack basic knowledge about pot odds. They bet too little, too much, or just make ridiculous calls. But what made this bit of stupidity so very special was that he followed one stupid play up with an even stupider play. I can understand a desire to gamble. Some players are just having fun and that is fine. It definitely benefits me. But to be in a gambling mode before the flop and then not want to gamble after the flop, when the former is unprofitable and the latter is profitable, takes a very special fish. Not only doesn’t he understand pot odds, but he isn’t even consistent in his stupidity.

…I have to start a hall of fame for these kinds of plays. This is the first entry.