June 10, 2023

Bad Beats – A Poker Story

For as much as I play poker, you’d think that I would mention it on my blog more often eh? Apparantley not. Anyway, I played in a roughly 100 person tournament this weekend (I’m not sure of the total entrants.. it was between 70 and 100). It was a charity game ran by the Axemen – they’re a professional firefighter motorcycle club that basically does a ton of charity work.

Anyway, I ended up taking 17th position (my friend Bryan took 20th or so).

Here’s how I lost:

I was in the big blind, and there was a small raise pre flop. Everybody else folded so I called the discounted price to see with some pretty crappy cards. I usually like heads up chances because I’m confident that I can outplay people after the flop – this was no exception.

The flop came up with an ace and a flush draw, I caught nothing. He checked to me and I checked to see a free card. The turn card was a 9 – that gave me a really low pair but also made a flush possible. Action was on the original raiser who came out firing with an “all – in.” Something didn’t seem right. This guy had been talking for hours about how he never bluffs (and he wasn’t forced to show one all night), but he’d gone all-in a lot recently and won a few pots with it to invest and win even more paying at ?? ???.

I asked for a chip count.

Calling his all in would have left me with exactly 1 big blind. I thought for a second, then announced “you’re bluffing, I call” and turned over my crappy pair of nines. His smile faded as he turned over his K-10. No straight draw, no flush draw, no pair – nothing. I was right!

Then the river – 10. Owell, at least the event had free food and beer. I made sure I got my $65 worth of that!

About Ryan Jones

Ryan Jones is an SEO from Detroit. By day he works as a manager of SEO & Analytics at SapientNitro where his team performs SEO for Fortune500 clients. By night he's either playing hockey or attempting to take over the world with his own websites - which he would have already succeeded in doing had it not been for those meddling kids and their dog. The views expressed here have not been paid for and belong only to Ryan, not any of his employers or clients. Follow Ryan on Twitter at: @RyanJones, add him on Google+ or visit his personal website: www.RyanMJones.com