Texas Hold'em Loose Play in Tahoe

I made it through Carson City unscathed and arrived in Tahoe. I parked in the Mont Bleu casino parking lot and walked up the strip to Harvey's casino where the best poker room lay. Harvey's is run by Harrah's entertainment and is run with Harrah's usual inefficiency. I had grabbed a Starbuck's coffee on my way to the casino as I figured that I would still be required to wait a while to get on a table and I was right. I had called ahead to get on the poker room list and it still took a while to acquire a seat. I eventually had to point out that there was an empty seat in order to be placed.

Once I was seated at the table I noticed very quickly that the game was at least as wild as my friend had mentioned. On the very first hand I looked down to see that I had been dealt pocket 5's. There had been a fairly large raise by the first person to act (don't worry, I won't go too much in depth but I cannot leave this hand out.) and had subsequently been called by nearly everyone at the table. I was priced in to see the flop so I called the raise as I was last to act being in the big blind. (there was no one left to act before the person who had raised, therefore it could not be raised further unless I did so and I was not about to do so until I had seen some cards on the board).

As the flop (the first three shared cards to be revealed) came out I watched my opponents for reactions instead of looking at the cards as they came out. This is a very good strategy and one that every poker player ought to observe. Curiously I saw no reactions. I did not see how it could have been possible that they all had missed the flop. There were 7 people in the hand and three cards had been revealed. The odds that the flop had missed everyone were very slim. Either my opponents were very good at hiding their reactions or they had all completely missed the flop. They were glancing around the table belatedly to see if anyone had reacted to the flop. I knew better than to look at the cards that had come up at this time. Even though I am very good at hiding my reactions, there was already a lot of money in the pot and if it had hit me, it would be very hard to hide the fact. That's when I noted they all were looking at me and I remembered that I was first to act. I checked without looking at the flop hoping that they would then focus on the original raiser giving me a chance to view the board unobserved. I could always exercise the option to re-raise after someone else had bet if the flop had indeed hit me. There was too much money in the pot at this point for someone to resist taking a stab at it as their turn to act came along. Someone was going to bet. It was just a matter of who that would be.

It worked, they all focused on the person to my left and I stole a glance at the board. The board was 5, 5, 8. That explained a lot. I had hit four of a kind on the flop and that is why no one else had shown a reaction when the cards came out. For someone else to have hit that flop hard enough to show a reaction they would have had to been holding pocket eights and that was unlikely but even if it were so, their hand was nowhere near as strong as mine. The person who had originally bet out put in a bet of about ½ the size of the pot which was still a lot of money. One person called and everyone else folded as it came to me. There was not enough money in the pot for them to stay if I put in a re-raise now so I just called.

The turn came out (the fourth shared card to be revealed) and I checked again. The original raiser followed up with a bet of $100. The other person who had called him folded and the bet came to me. There was now nearly $400 in the pot and I had about $233 left in front of me as I had bought in for $300. If I moved all in now, the original raiser could not fold as he was already pot committed and it would only be another $133 for him to call. I pushed all-in. He called almost immediately. He had hit two pair over the pair of 5's on the board. The hand ran out and I scraped in a pot holding about $760. Not a bad way to start the day.