An Embarassing Win

About two months ago I did something really dumb and somehow didn't lose a large amount of money. I've told my friends about it, but I never got around to writing about until now. I don't know if it serves any educational purpose to relate it, but it was very weird. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned about paying attention.

I had been playing $1/$2 no limit for about two hours and had grown my stack from $200 to around $320 - playing my usual tight game. Buddy on my left was pretty loose, and I'd taken a few pots when he called when he should have folded.

Then this happened:


I was in late position when Lucky-Short-Stack (middle position) raised $15 pre-flop with only around $80 in chips in front of him. I looked down at J9o and made what can only be described as a very bad call. Why I did this I can't say - against a short stack it seems a very bad play because even if I hit, I'm not going to get a huge pay-off. It was dumb and inexplicable as up to that point I'd been playing smart poker. Anyway Buddy-On-my-Left also calls so three of us see the flop: Ks Qd 5h

Okay, I've got an open-ended straight draw. That's a 1-in-3 shot to complete if I can stick around to the river right? There's about $40 in the pot. Lucky is the first to act and he fires half of his stack - $40 - into the middle. I'm getting pot odds to call, so I do. Buddy calls too. With a $160 pot the three of us see the turn. The board now looks like this: Ks Qd 5h 2s.

Lucky puts his last $40 in. Praying I hit my straight, I call. Now the pot is $280, with Lucky all in. Buddy calls as well.

The river brings an 8h! I hit my straight! Whoopee! Now I'm gonna clean out Buddy here for all his chips! There is no way he can escape! I just check, not wanting to scare him away. Just as I expected he put in a bet - but only $100, much to my disappointment. I hemmed and hawed a bit to sell it, then pushed all-in - a $200 re-raise.

And then it hit me: I don't have a straight. In fact, I don't have anything at all. I just put all my chips into a pot without so much as a pair. Even though I suddenly felt like puking, I somehow managed to keep my face from betraying me. After about two minutes (It felt like twenty) Buddy folds - showing that he had A K. I guess he was convinced by my tight play that top-pair top-kicker wasn't good enough to beat me. The side pot was mine.

I would have mucked my hand, except I was also in the main pot with Lucky-Short-Stack, so I had to show. "I got nothing." I said as I flip my cards over. Buddy, as you might expect, is a little put out. Lucky-Short-Stack, can't believe it - all he has is a pair of queens, but since I pushed out Buddy (who says he folded kings) he goes from getting busted to tripling up.

For all my incredible risk taking, I only made about $20 in total because I lost the main pot. Still it could have been - should have been- a disaster for me.

I ended up $140 up on the day when I left about an hour later. What can you learn from this? Nothing except that sometimes lady luck smiles even on idiots.