Poker News

Mike Eikenberry

One Card Omaha-Known for his skillful no limit hold’em play, T.J. Cloutier is also one of the very best pot-limit Omaha players in the world. With five tables left in the WSOP pot-limit Omaha championship, I found myself on T.J.’s left with an average chip stack. T.J. had one of the larger stacks at the table. Two or three hands later, I was the big blind. T.J. raised the size of the pot after everyone else had folded. I called with both red aces and the 8-7 of spades.

The flop was the queen, six, and deuce of spades giving me a flush. He bet the pot and I called. The turn was the ten of hearts. T.J. thought and then checked. I bet the pot and T.J. quickly made a pot-sized raise, which would have cost me over half my chips. After considerable thought, I folded, crediting T.J. with a higher flush, and showed my baby flush with a pair of aces as a kicker. T.J. said, “My hand is only half as good as yours, one ace and half a flush.” At the same time he exposed his ace of spades and three red unpaired cards in his hand. He knew a tight player would not go all-in against a bigger stack that could have “the nuts.”

IS THE REBUY PERIOD OVER?-In no-limit hold’em, the players with the most chips have a big strategic advantage. They can bully and bluff those with smaller chip stacks who can go broke if they make one mistake. In no-limit super satellites many good players, who are in pursuit of a big stack of chips, are willing to take to take seemingly ridiculous chances during the re-buy periods to accumulate chip stacks. However, after the re-buy period is over, these same players often change gears and play very conservatively. Players who do not see this can easily misread situations. This initial desire for chips can create some strange situations.

BRENT CARTER is an excellent tournament player known to do the unusual at times to throw others off their games. He got into a super satellite at my table as an alternate, just minutes before the end of the re-buy period. The first hand he bet all his chips before the hand was even dealt. He luckily won the when his T-2 made a wheel on the river against a pair of pocket queens. The next hand he again bet all his chips before the deal. He as called by two players. One had a pair of tens and the other had a pair of kings. This time his flush on the end won another pot and pushed his chip total to over $1,200. Everyone then took a ten minute break as the re-buy period was over. Brent had our whole room talking about those two hands by the end of the break.

The first hand after the break, Brent went all-in one more time. Only this time he looked at his hand. The big stack at the table called and turned over pocket jacks, saying “I do not think you can suck out with the worst hand three times in a row.” The player flopped a third jack and turned a fourth jack to win the hand and bust Brent. As he left the table, Brent said, “You got me, clearly I play better when I do not look at my hole cards.” At the same time Brent tossed his hand face down in the muck.

One player said what many of us were thinking, “I wonder what sort of garbage Brent played this hand?” At the same time, before the dealer could do anything, the player in the one-seat reached out and turned over Brent’s hand from the top of the muck-two black aces.

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