18
Poker 101
For a half hour this afternoon the Full Tilt lounge turned into an impromptu poker academy, and, initially a disinterested bystander, I suddenly found myself the lucky beneficiary of all that shared knowledge. Michael Craig, bestselling author of The Professor, The Banker, and The Suicide King, kicked off the discussion when he entered the lounge, spotted Andy Bloch and Andy Black relaxing on the couches, and said, “I’ve got a question for the two Andys.”
His question was two-fold: had he played a hand right (the one that knocked him out of today’s $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event), and, if not, how could he have played it better? Craig had reraised before the flop with pocket queens and subsequently been reraised all in by Perry Friedman. The consensus was that his big mistake was the amount he had raised; he should have either raised a little less, which would have made folding to Friedman’s move a bit easier, or gone ahead and moved in before the flop. Black added, “It depends upon whether you’re a math guy or an instinct guy. If you thought he had aces, you had to fold.”
Craig’s question opened the floodgates wide open, transforming the lounge into a round-table of poker strategy. The agony of deciding whether or not to muck queens prompted Black to recall a similar hand from last year’s main event where he was one of three players (Mike Matusow was another) to see a flop of 10-8-7. Black decided that the only logical hand that his could beat was pocket jacks. He was correct. A set of tens took the hand.
Doug Lee chimed in, telling the others about the hand that knocked him out of one of the Omaha tournaments going on today. He had J-10-9-8 and the flop came 8-9-J. He got two callers, both of whom had A-A-J-3, and was a big favorite to win the hand, but, alas, did not.
Moments later, Jen Harman and Erick Lindgren entered the room and as if infected by the prevailing mood immediately launched into a discussion of a hand that was featured on High Stakes Poker where Jen bluffed Antonio Esfandiari off his pocket queens. She only had 9-7 but as she said, “You should have seen his body language when the king hit the flop. He just….” She slumped her shoulders and produced an extended sigh. It was the same expression Craig used when he mentioned that he called Perry Friedman’s raise and Perry did in fact have aces.
