It gets a little hot here in Vegas during the summer. Temperatures sometimes soar close to 120 degrees. So, when summer hits, I awaken as early as 5 a.m. to play golf comfortably in the pleasant Las Vegas mornings. After all, it rarely gets to 110 degrees before noon. On summer weekends, I get up before dawn and head to the cardroom for a little hold'em action. The games at that time of the morning generally consist of players who are stuck from playing all night, and often get pretty wild.
On this particular Saturday morning, I really needed a seat belt. The game was $30-$60 hold'em, the fellas at the table were drinkin' and gamblin', several of them were on wide-open tilt, and the chips were flying. It was just another Saturday morning shoot-out at the Bellagio poker room.
The player in front of me was raising and betting almost every hand. Buried, drunk, and ticked off at the world, he was determined to get even or go broke and going broke was a big favorite. Of course, this type of opponent can cost you a lot of money. When these opponents hit, the pots tend to be huge, and they cackle with glee. When they miss … well, the rest of the table has been chasing them, and the pots also tend to be huge. And on this Saturday, it wasn't as if the rest of the table was tight. Taking a hand to the river was likely to cost a few stacks.
Mr. Get Even-or-Go Broke raised under the gun. Next to act, I looked down to see the A
A
. It was exactly the hand I had been dreaming of. A number of times throughout the course of play, I had three-bet this player in a fruitless effort to isolate him. However, the remaining players in the field, not being in a much better frame of mind than this guy, came along every time. There were no shorthanded pots. There was no value in deception or slow-playing, so I three-bet him with my aces, knowing that most of the field was coming behind me. I would have to make the best hand against a large field to win this pot. As expected, five players came in behind me for the three bets. We took the flop off sevenhanded for $90 each.
The flop came 10
9 8, pretty much the flop from hell for my holding in this situation. The player to my right fired into the pot, as he had done into every pot since I'd sat down. After all, he knew darn well that he wouldn't get even by doing a lot of checking.
I thought about the situation. My hand was probably lots better than his. However, I had no spade and five players yet to act behind me. Even if my hand was currently the best holding, any spade, 6, 7, jack, or queen would cripple it. All of my opponents were pretty much taking any pair to the river, so any 8, 9, or 10 likely would not be safe, either.
If I raised, I didn't think that anyone would fold any sort of a hand that could outdraw me. Anyone with almost any draw to beat me would be getting the right price to draw against my hand, although not necessarily the right price to draw against the field. Those facts took away my best reasons to raise. Should I flat-call? With five stuck contenders looking to gamble behind me and this inebriated fellow in front of me, the likelihood of being faced with multiple bets when it got back to me was great. I tossed my aces into the muck without calling a single flop bet.
I didn't want to get caught up in the hand, and get myself committed to a situation from which I was not getting any value. The likelihood of this happening with a pot of this size and players of this type who were very difficult to read was great. If I played the hand in any manner on the flop, I was going to have company, and there were too many cards in the deck that could cripple my hand. The fact that my opponents were very unpredictable created the likelihood of my having to pay off a better hand because of the size of the pot, or possibly fold a winner because a bad card came off the deck.
In poker, as in life, sometimes you start down a road with positive visions in your mind, but unforeseen circumstances turn the journey into a messy one, blocking your path with several obstacles. Suddenly, your visions become negative. It is important in poker and life that you possess the intuition to understand this, and when the road turns the wrong way, to understand that you have to change your plans and sometimes even abandon the trip. What looked like the right course a moment ago can turn into a road to nowhere. When that happens, make your decision based on the value of all the possible circumstances combined. Even when making the best decisions, sometimes you're going to encounter obstacles. But by playing and living smart, you should be able to change your direction and avoid the worst of it.
The best of games, the best of hands, and the best of situations in life have the potential to turn into cases of the summertime blues. And when that happens, all you can do is sweat it out and wait for things to cool down.
Roy Cooke played winning professional poker for more than 16 years. He is a successful real estate broker/salesperson in Las Vegas – please see his ad on Page 123. If you would like to ask Roy poker questions, you may do so online at www.UnitedPokerForum.com.