During the EPT grand final table, Pastor, Frank, and Mateos were all involved in an all in pot pre-flop. Pastor is having the best day ever and wakes up with pocket aces. Frank and Mateos are not having the best time with pocket Kings and Pocket Queens. The chances of all three of them getting dealt pocket pairs is slim to none. Being that these are the three best possible starting hands you could have in poker, all players shove all in with their tournament life on the line. The FlopBefore the flop, Frank and Mateos only have 2 outs each. This means that only 4 cards in the deck could possibly crush Pastors dreams of winning the EPT. Pastor has a 66% chance of winning one of the biggest pots in the tournament. The flop is a pretty big dud. It comes out duece, ten, four. This only skyrockets pastors chances of winning. His chances go all the way up to 83%. Frank and Mateos are already packing their bags to go home. They each only have about a 5% chance of winning the pot. The turn and riverAs they are walking out, a queen comes on the turn. Pastors joy turns to utter disbelief as he realizes how screwed he really is. Mateos' chances of winning this hand went from about 8% to 90%. He went from the biggest dog. Pastor looks like he is about to be sick. The river is another dud, the seven of diamonds. Pastor is probably considering never playing the game again after getting absolutely cold decked. All of the players got their money in good and the bad beats were extraordinary. Frank takes in a pot of around $904,000. This pot made him the chip leader of the tournament. People may just say that that is poker and you should suck it up. However, I can not think of a worse feeling in the game than getting your aces cracked.
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Pre-Flop.This hand was played between online poker specialist Andrew Robl and British poker star Toby Lewis. Andrew Robl wakes up with pocket 9's. This is a very strong starting hand. In fact, it is the 6th best hand you could possibly have before the flop. However, this could not have been a worse time to have that hand. Toby has pocket queens. This is considered the third best hand you could have before the flop. Shockingly, Lewis raises the big blind up to $8,000. Robl has to put in $6,000 to call. Another player calls with pocket two's but he is not very relevant in the hand. Before the flop, Toby Lewis has about a 66% chance of winning the pot. Toble has about a 19% chance and the pocket two's guy who is irrelevant was only a 15% chance of winning With all the pre-flop action in the books, we head to the flop. The flopThis flop could not be more devastating for Robl. I'm talking gut wrenching, "I'm about to throw up" kind of flop. The flop comes queen of diamonds, nine of spades, queen of clubs. This gives Robl a full house, nines full of queens. However, this gives Toby the stone cold nuts. He flopped quad kings. This gives Robl a 0% chance to win the hand. Thinking he has the best hand, he fires out for $18,000. However he is in a world of pain. This bet forces the pocket two's to fold. Lewis being a competent poker player, raises it up to $42,000. Robl contemplates that maybe he has one of the two hands that could possibly beat him. Eventually he decides to throw in the calling chips. The TurnThe next card is a complete dud. The card is the five of spades. This changes absolutely nothing about the hand. Robl checks the turn. Most likely attempting to induce a bluff from Toby. However we all know that Lewis is not bluffing. Robl gets exactly what he wanted. Toby fires out for $63,000. This is a fairly large bet in comparison to the pot. Having a full house, Robl calls pretty quickly and now we move to one of the craziest flops I have ever seen. The RiverThe river is the 4th nine in the deck, the nine of clubs. This nine gives Robl the second nuts. That means there is only one hand that could beat him, and it just so happens that his opponent happens to have that hand. Andrew shoves all-in for $149,000 thinking he can not lose. However, we do know he can lose and he is about too. Lewis snap calls and Robl is shown the bad news. He looks to be in absolute shock as he is nocked out of the tournament with quad nines. No one can even imagine what he is going through. But im sure the millions of dollars he has in winnings will help him feel better.
PreviewTo set the scene, one of the world's best poker player's, Phil Hellmuth, faced off against a young poker star named Tom "Durrrr" Dwan. Phil is ranked in the top 10 in net worth among poker players. He has 15 World Series of Poker championship bracelets. He is also known as pokers biggest brats. His nickname is actually "The Poker Brat". He has gained this reputation through years of big blow-ups at the poker table. He has cursed many poker players out after losing hands. He has a massive arsenal when it comes to insults to players who he feels don't deserve to be at the table with him. He felt no different going up against Tom. Pre-FlopIt is the third hand of the first round of the National Heads-up tournament and Phil looks down at pocket aces. Aces in a regular game is a very strong hand. However, in a heads up game the strength only increases. He sets a trap an only calls the big blind to induce a raise from Tom. Tom looks down and see's pocket ten's. Phil has successfully trapped Tom. He did exactly what Phil wanted. So Phil re-raises Tom, to try to get more value out of his aces. Tom does not necessarily believe that Phil has him beat. He could just be trying to say that he can not be pushed around early in the game. Now with this in mind, Tom shoves all in just three hands into the match. Phil snap calls and shoves his chips in the middle. Before the flop, Phil is an 80% favorite to win the hand and the match. Tom needs a lot of help from the poker gods to pull this one out. The FlopThe flop comes deuce, king, seven. This flop would be good for pocket tens, if they were not against aces of course. This drastically increases Phil's chances of winning the pot. It went to 80% to 92% chance of winning the pot. Tom did not even gain any draws from this flop so his only saviors are the two remaining tens in the deck. The TurnAs he will tell you himself, Phil Hellmuth can not lose to anyone because of skill, the only way he can lose is just pure bad luck. The dealer puts down the turn and it is of course a ten. This gives Tom a set of tens and the new best hand. You can almost see the exact moment Phil's heart split in half. However there is a glimpse of hope for Phil. He has the ace of spades in his hand. There are now three spades on the board giving him the nut flush draw. If another spade hit, he would take down the pot and move on to the next round. Phil has roughly a 20% chance of this happening. The RiverThere is a glimmer of hop for the great poker brat. He calls out to the dealer to put down a three of spades to give him the flush. However the three of spades never came. Instead the dealer puts out the nine of diamonds. This card is no help to Phil and he loses on a hand that everyone would agree he should have won convincingly. Tom asks for a chip count to finalize the hand and move on to the next round. Phil being the fantastic sport that he is had to let Tom know how poorly he played the hand. Tom was being incredibly professional while Phil barraged him with insults. One of my favorite quotes from Phil came from the result of this hand. He tells Tom he does not think that he will even be around in 5 years. However Phil would be wrong about that as Tom is now known as one of the best poker players in the world.
My name is Shane O'Brien. I am a young aspiring poker player who hopes to make a decent bit of money playing this game that I love. I play in small home games or small city games. To help improve my game I watch poker vlogs or games that are on television like the World Series of Poker. Over my time watching poker I have seen a fair amount of crazy poker hands with bad beats, coolers, and insane bluffs. I have also been a part of a few hands that made my jaw drop. Today we will be talking about a hand that I saw in the P.C.A. 2019 tournament. It involves a woman named Thi Nguyen and a man named Athanasios Polychronopoulos. The FlopBefore the flop came, Thi looked down at AQ off suit and opened it up with a raise. Athanasios has pocket aces. For those who do not know poker this is the best starting hand you can possibly get. He re-raises Thi and she calls. Now we go to the flop. The flop is the first three community cards to come onto the board after the dealer burns one card. The flop comes king, queen, nine. thi flops middle pair and has top kicker. Athanasios is the first to act and he checks with his over pair and Thi checks behind him. The TurnThe turn is the next card to come after the dealer burns a second card. The turn comes and it is another queen, giving Thi the best hand with three of a kind. At first it seems that Athanasios is in deep trouble here. However he believed he was ahead with his aces, so he decides to try to set a trap and checks. Thi with the three queens has no other choice but to bet. She fires a small bet of about 17,000 into a 70,000 dollar pot. This is a very small bet size. It comes out to about 24% of the pot. Anthanasios is getting some pretty good pot odds to call so he does. Now we go the the crazy river card. The River The river is the final community card to come onto the board. At this moment Thi is ahead with her three queens and Athanasios is a huge underdog to win this hand. Given that Thi has one ace and Athanasios has the other, that means there is only one card in the deck that can save him.
Of course the one card that can save him just so happens to be the river card. The ace of spades. This card gives Thi a full house, queens full of aces. But, this also gives Athanasios a higher full house, aces full of queens. The chance of him hitting that card was somewhere around 2%. Again like a crazy perso Athanasios checks for the third time. Thi makes a good size bet of 50,000. Athanasios raises her all in. I have not played poker for as long as she has but to fold a full house is insane. It is one of the best hands you could possibly make in this scenario. Being the sick human that she is, Thi somehow makes an amazing fold. I have not met a single poker player that would have made that fold. I believe many people would go broke on this hand but she had the courage to lay this hand down. That is all for this hand. Check out next weeks post for another crazy hand. |
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April 2019
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