Some hands play themselves

I saw an interesting situation play out online in the middle of a $5 6 player no limit tournament I was observing/helping someone through.

She had K 8 in the big blind, 2 limpers which included the player on the button and the small blind. Flop came KK8 for the full house on the flop. The odds of hitting a full house on the flop when you are not holding a pocket pair are 1087 / 1 - truly like hitting the jackpot!

So, I tell my friend to check it … you don’t want to scare anyone off. Small blind makes a pot sized bet of 180, I tell her to call but not too quickly, the player on the button called as well. The next card put an ace on the board that offered the possibility of a flush draw. Things were looking good (assuming someone might pay for a flush draw). Small blind checks, I advise my friend to check hoping the player on the button might bet. He does, also a pot sized bet, small blind folds and we call. River draws a blank that neither completes the straight nor the flush. With the small blind folded we are first to act. I rarely check in this spot with only one other player in the hand, hoping my bet looks like an attempt to steal and my opponent hit something, anything, or is just not that good of a player. So, we bet half the pot, button goes all in and has us covered, we call.

He turns over AK for the better full house; ours (which we flopped) was kings over 8’s his was kings over aces. We’re out of the tournament and left a little stunned.

These are the kinds of hands people remember and talk about so not surprisingly it came up at our home game later that day. I have thought about this hand a fair bit and concluded that no matter how it was played it would have turned out the same way. Any of the three players in the hand could have gone all in at any time and we would not have folded the full house we were so lucky to flop and he would not have folded trip kings with an ace kicker on a rainbow flop. Once he hit the better “fully” we figured the ace was more likely to give him 2 pair, a straight draw or a flush draw so we weren’t going anywhere. Truly the only way anyone was going to fold was to hit the wrong button! This is online poker after all. ;-)

There are MANY situations where you can outplay your opponent during a game but to me this hand served as a reminder that sometimes, some hands just seem to play themselves.

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