"That's what it's all about, isn't it? Making the wrong move at the right time." Those of us who are familiar with the dialogue from the movie The Cincinnati Kid will recognize this quote as the response from The Man to Ladyfingers when she says, "You raised tens on a lousy three flush?" in the climactic scene when The Man busts The Kid with a straight flush. Well, sometimes unorthodox play winds up producing a windfall Let me share with you a bone head play that recently closed out a victory for me in a No-Limit internet tournament.
I was heads up with a slight chip advantage to my opponent who raised all-in pre-flop I was holding 7-2 off suit and was prepared to fold. I don't normally show my hands as I'm not a fan of dispensing free information. Therefore, I have the "Muck losing hands" button on default. Since I held a 7-2 off suit and wanted to show my opponent that there was no way I could call his wager, I was frantically trying to unlock the "Muck losing hands" button to click the show hand button and somehow wound up calling the all-in raise by mistake. I sat there in a state of shock at how I could have done this to myself as our hands are turned over for each of us to see. My opponent held pocket eights. I'm sure he was surprised to see my meager holding of 7-2 off suit. The flop came 4- 8-9 rainbow, giving my opponent a set of eights. I immediately see "lol" (laughing out loud) appear in the chat box as my stunned opponent begins to gloat about this fortuitous turn of events I must appear to be an enormous fish to my opponent and am turning red as I'm sure steam was emanating from my ears. I was just grateful that he couldn't see my embarrassment and ire. The turn produces a Jack of the fourth suit and then a Ten falls on the river. It took me a second to realize I had just put an incredible bad beat on this dude. To my opponent's credit there was no tirade at his misfortune. He quietly left the table with a bad beat story to share with anyone who would listen. I'm sure these types of astonishing events are what fuels the rumor mill with the "This site must be fixed" type of statement that we have all heard. Making a winning straight out of the worst possible starting hand in Hold'em to win a tournament was something of a miracle and I didn't take any pride in my victory because I knew what a fluke it was to have prevailed. In retrospect, even with a hand as bad as 7-2 off suit against a higher pocket pair I was only about a 7 to 1 dog As I've said before, even though a victory seemed unlikely, 7-1 isn't exactly out there in the lottery realm of odds against. I guess if you play enough poker you're bound to see it all.
I don't know whether there is a goal for this session but at least take away from this time together the need to be careful in clicking your mouse lest you make a bone head error like I did and aren't lucky enough to have it work to your advantage. Hey, maybe 7-2 off suit will become my new lucky hand. Then again, maybe not! I don't think I could pull off this miracle more than once.
See you next "TIME".
