Shulman Says

I was on the receiving end of somebody else's mistake in a no-limit hold'em satellite at Binion's World Poker Open recently in Tunica. Sometimes we all get lucky.

The blinds were $100-$200, the average chip count was about $3,500, and several of us were in that neighborhood. There was one limper and three callers, including me with a K-J in the big blind. The pot was $800. The flop came K-J-J, which gave me a full house. Everyone checked.

The turn was the 9, putting a second diamond on the board. The small blind checked, I bet $500, and the limper moved in for $3,000 with a Q-J. He had three jacks.

Sure, his three jacks usually would be good at that point in the hand, but here there was virtually no hand that I could call such a big raise with that didn't beat his hand – even the Q-10 straight hit.

Had he just called, I wouldn't have made much more on the hand, because a king came on the river and I would have had to settle for a relatively small bet, since the board now showed two kings and he would have been alerted.

The lesson: Don't come over the top with what you think is probably the best hand if you can only lose if you get called. This is especially true in no-limit hold'em, which is not forgiving of this type of error.