Boasting or Baloney?



Who plays Q-4 anyways?

 Yeah, yeah, yeah, Q-4 is an insta-fold.  But at the Tampa Hard Rock, in the $1-$3 No Limit Hold'em game, from late position, in a limp pot where nobody is raising, for $3 you can see if you can get lucky and flop something stupid.  So it happens that this is exactly the situation I am faced with. 

After 3 players limp I toss in my $3 and a guy behind me calls.  The Small Blind folds (much to the amusement of many at the table) and the Big Blind checks his option.

Okay, now for the stupid lucky flop:  Q♥-8♦-4♦ giving yours truly top and bottom pairs. Stupid lucky. Maybe. It is pretty strong, but it can be beat. It can also be drawn out on by any hand containing 2 diamonds.

After the Big checks, player bets $20. Obviously he likes this flop. When 6 people see a flop, players do not usually bet to try to bluff against five players. There is just too much chance that somebody connected with the flop and will not fold. We assume he has something - a pair of queens or a flush draw with overcards or even a flush draw along with a pair of queens. Two people fold. I call, deciding that I will see the Turn card and if I like it, I will make a move. One player behind me also calls and the Big Blind folds.

 The Turn card is the 5♣ .

Innocent looking enough. It might fill in an inside straight but I am not really worried about that. I am just relieved that it wasn't another diamond and didn't pair the 8. The player bets another $20. I think about this for a while and decide that I likely have the best hand and anyone with a draw to beat me is going to have to pay for the priviledge. I pull a stack of $5 red chips aside and take four of them in hand, thinking. Then I put the four chips aside and slide the remainder of the stack ($80) forward. "Eighty." The player behind me folds. After some thought, player calls the additional $60.

The River. "Please don't be a diamond!" The voice inside my head shouts. The dealer burns a card and places the 3♦ in position on the board. Shit. Player says, "I'm all in." And pushes enough of his chips forward to cover the $95 I have left. Why did it have to be a diamond? I was going along just fine, about breaking even or a little better up to this point in the game. Now I have to make a decision for all my chips. Just the other night, my buddy Frank was obviously pulling for a suit, got it, and used it to bluff me out of a pot. Could this be happenning again? Crap. After (or while) pushing the chips forward, the player kicked over something near his feet. There was a little commotion and he wiggled around and looked down under the table but now he was still. He sat with his head down staring at nothing, waiting for me to act.

Then it occurred to me. That guy bet $20 on the flop at an $18 dollar pot. If he had a flush draw, he would check or he would make a small "blocking" bet to try to minimize his investment in the draw. No, he made a flop bet like a typical player would make if he wanted to get the draws to fold or pay too much to see another card. Obviously, by going all in he was convinced that I didn't have a flush. I wasn't ready to go home, but I wasn't ready to give up either.

"I call," I say as I slide the remaining $95 of my chips forward.

"Showdown!" The dealer says.

He sits. He doesn't move from his pose. "I call. Let's see them." There's a rumble around the table as people are getting annoyed that here is a big showdown and the players are wasting time not showing their cards. My feeling is that I just paid $95 to see this guy's cards and dammit, the rules say that because he took the last aggressive action, he must show. Without looking up, he turns over the Q♦.

"I need to see the other one."

"Don't worry, you're good." I hear from another player who has not yet seen my cards.

Shaking his head, he then turns over the K♠. I immediately turn over my 2 pair. The dealer counts out $95 from my opponent's stack and pushes me the pot. Whew!