Your opponent -- perhaps sensing weakness or perhaps taking leave of his senses -- pushes out a huge bet and dares you to call. If he has the hand he's supposed to have, you're crushed. But you think something is amiss and decide that this is it. You're going to take a stand. Just after you say, "Call," your opponent shakes his head and says, "You win," as he tosses his cards into the muck.
For the past hour, seat 9 had been running over our $5-$10 no-limit hold'em game. He had dark shades and a mean-looking goatee, and combined with his calm and controlled manner, he created a pretty intimidating presence. His massive chip stack certainly helped. He had more than $3,000 in front of him, while no one else had more than $2,000.
When was the last time you three-barrel bluffed? Was it months ago? Years? Never? Let me back up a bit. A three-barrel bluff is when you make a bluff bet on all three of the post-flop streets. You bet the flop and get called. You bet the turn and get called. And then you make another bluff on the river.
The World Series of Poker history book is filled with stories of multiple wins, amazing cashes, and empty chairs, of bad beats and world-class drawouts, of piles of silver and crashed racecars. The 2008 WSOP should be no different.
During the summer months in Las Vegas, the only thing hotter than the temperature is all of the poker action. Things begin to heat up at the end of May with the World Series of Poker, but that isn't the only tournament series in town.
As readers of my columns know, my favorite poker game is not no-limit hold'em, the game that is always shown on TV. My favorite game is pot-limit Omaha (PLO). It being a four-card game in which, on average, one needs a much stronger hand to win than in no-limit hold'em, some people claim that there is no bluffing, that it is just a nut-peddling game. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. It is correct that at showdown, one will usually need a straight, flush, or even full house to win; only rarely will a hand like two pair or even a single pair be enough.
The squeeze play has a bit of a daring and clever feel to it. It's a bluff (or semibluff) perpetrated against not one, but several opponents. Someone bets, one or more players call, and you raise. When it works, you feel like a champ, and you rake a big pot. When it doesn't work, "Oops."
On one of my recent trips, while playing in another big live tournament, I again got myself into a very marginal situation - just as I did in the hand in my last column. Again, I had tried to unsuccessfully reraise someone off a hand, and when my move got called, I reached the river with a hand that could never win in a showdown.
If you spend enough time in life on one activity - like golf, for example - you're bound to occasionally witness something amazing, like a hole-in-one. I've played a lot of poker in my life, and here's one of those moments, one of the more incredible and more entertaining hands in which I've ever been involved.
When working with novices, I assure them that they can still make money even though they are novice players. At the lower limits, choosing the right games and the right starting hands is enough to get you in the black. But I tell them that to obtain true long-term success, and to move past the "beginner" level, one of the most important skills they need to acquire is what I refer to as double vision.
