Anatomy of a Suckout

I played in my very first WWdN Poker Stars tourney on Tuesday. Out of the 6 others seated at my starting table, I saw two familiar faces. Wil was in the 3 seat and Jaxia was in the 4 seat as I sat in the 9 seat.

First hand: I am dealt QTo in the cutoff. UTG (cfinnn) calls, as do I and the SB (Wil), BB (Jaxia) checks and we are 4 handed to the flop. Ts 5h 6s hits the board, Wil leads out with 40 and it's folded to me. At this point the blinds are only 10/20 so there's 80 in the pot. With a 1/2 pot bet I figure he's made top or middle pair. With my top pair and Q kicker I decide that I am probably ahead at this point and call to make him think I am drawing to the flush or the straight.

The turn brings a 9h and now there are two flush draws and a possible straight on the board. If he checks I am betting, and if he bets I am raising. Try and win the pot right there in case he now has a draw. If he doesn't fold, I am probably still ahead in the hand anyway. Wil bets out 82. I don't like this bet. People normally only bet in unique amounts when they are very comfortable with their hands. For the first time, the possibility of him holding trips enters my mind, but I dismiss the thought quickly as I believe one of his bets would have been more than half the pot. I settle on top pair, maybe top two pair, and quickly raise to 175. His amount of time to call tells me nothing and we go to the river.

The Qc hits the board and I now have the top two pair. If my read on his hand is right I am gold. He bets 100. Crap! I don't know his playing style well enough to know if he dropped his bets from 1/2 pot to 1/5 pot because he is vulnerable, or because he's trying to induce a raise. I tank for a second and he types "i have a hand, i swear". Hmmm, more confidence in what he's holding. There goes my raising option. I think I have the best hand, but if he plays back with a big raise I am going to fold. Call.

Wil flips over his 9c 5s and for once the river is kind to me. It's not very often that I get help on the river when someone takes the lead on me at the turn, so this was nice to see. I pull in a sizable pot on the first hand, and I read the hand pretty well for having little experience playing against Wil. As a matter of fact, the most notable thing for me about his play at the Winter Classic is that he lost two consecutive coin flips with pocket pairs in the short time I played at his table. Not much to go on.

Wil excused himself to get his list and a pen. I guess it doesn't take that much to get on his list after all. I mean it's not like I put him out on the first hand. But wait, there's more.

Later that evening, very near the bubble, blinds are now at 300/600 with an ante of 50. I doubled through an opponent when my tens held up against AQ. Will pushes with QJo. He's second stack at the table, and unless I call from the button his tournament life is not at stake. With a QTo I don't feel like risking more than 1/2 my stack on the off chance that I could knock off the host. The guy I recently doubled through is short stacked and calls with nines. Wil is slightly less than 50-50 here going into the flop. Said flop knocked out any chance he had at winning when it came down 9-9-3, and Wil actually thought he was out of the tourney for a second. He was still in but with only 2550 left and the BB hitting him after only one more hand, he was desperate. This is where I step in.

Wil is in the BB, costing him 650 of his remaining 2500 with the ante. I have over 10k in my stack and look down to see ATc. Not too shabby, but I don't want to auto-push preflop and give any of the others a chance to hit me up, so I raise it to 1500 in hopes of getting Wil to push and he does so after everyone else folds. He flips over K8o, a hand that he deftly sucked out with earlier in the night against a K9 of all hands. I am a 2-1 favorite going into the flop.

Flop comes down 5s 3c 9h, and I am now a 3-1 favorite as Wil is yelling for a K. The turn card is....are you kidding me???....the Kc and I am instantly a 3-1 dog one card after being a 3-1 favorite. Sonuva! Well, at least it's a club and I have more outs than just an ace. My chat entry: "NOOOO".

The river card hits the table and it's a beautiful 5 of....wait for it....clubs. My chat entry: "YESSSSS". Wil's: "Crap". Sweet river of justice, how I love thee.

The symmetry of this all is just wonderful. Very rarely do things like this happen in your favor in a poker tournament. Starting and ending the host's tournament with hands where he was behind pre-flop and on the flop, ahead on the turn, and dead on the river just seems so rigged. This being online poker and all, maybe it was.