The Call That Nobody Wanted

One night at Binion's Horseshoe during the World Series, I was watching the final table of a supersatellite because Jeff was on his way toward winning a buy-in to the main event.

With about seven players left on an evening when five seats were being given out, I witnessed the call that nobody wanted. You could call this a bad-beat story, but I do not tell bad-beat stories.

Anyway, an early-position player with $5,800 in chips, which was a good-sized stack at this point, announced, "All in; $5,800," and shoved his three stacks in toward the center of the table.

Jeff folded and the next player, the chip leader, thinking he was opening the pot with a raise, stated, "50," and was stacking 50 $100 chips in the pot when somehow it came to his attention that the pot had already been opened. He turned white, pointed out that he didn't realize there was a raise, and wanted to retract his bet.

The floorperson was called for a decision. David Lamb came over and gathered the facts, and correctly stated that the 50 chips had to remain in the pot and the player at this point could fold or put in the additional eight to call.

Neither player liked the decision. Obviously, the player who erred put in the eight additional chips to make the call. Unfortunately, he had A-4, which he knew was far too weak for a call there.

The original raiser hated the call, too. With large blinds to be had, he certainly was not looking for confrontations. He had A-Q suited.

Of course, we all knew what was going to happen, and it did. A 4 came on the flop to knock out the raiser. So, the raiser took a bad beat because he was called by a player who essentially was forced to call.