The biggest hurdle in online poker as opposed to live sanghoki is your inability to physically read your opponent. In a live game if a player was to check over to you in a hand, you would have a better chance of reading weather or not you actually were ahead here, of if they were setting a trap for you.
Thats the exact trap that rose55 laid on for ALLIIIN at a $2/$4 table yesterday. Preflop rose55(A-A) raised to $16 and ALLIIIN(Q-J) was the only caller, but on a Q-A-A rainbow flop rose55 checked the action over to ALLIIIN.
At this point it was tricky for ALLIIN, it would be easy to see the check as a sign that rose55 was on the straight draw. ALLIIN checked and the turn was a 7, and once again rose55 checked. That check surely screamed out “STRAIGHT DRAW” and so ALLIIN pushed hard and threw $48 at the pot, only to be called down by rose55. With a possible flush draw out there as well it wouldn’t have been crazy to assume that rose had something like K-T or K-J all spades, and was happy to chase to the river. When the river came it was another 7, and another check from rose55 put the ball back in ALLIIN’s court. I have found myself in this position recently, and with every blank card to what you have put your opponent on you feel you are just one big bet away from taking the pot unopposed. ALLIIN clearly made a similar decision and pushed $142 into the pot. This was more than rose55 had at the table but with her quad aces she was happy to call.
The Perfect Flop
When you hold a massive pocket pair like we are looking for in Floptober, there are plenty of ways to win the hand. For value though there is “The Perfect Flop” and nothing beats it for getting a big win.
Nothing says “the nuts” like flopping a full house, when you make that kind of hand its easy to be distracted and to miss the one hand that crushes you. Quads. So when you’ve flopped quads, there is no better result on the flop than your opponent to make a full house.
Thats exactly what happened on a $1/$2 table, it was xthegamblerx and his pocket queens up against Sugarb4355 with pocket 6’s. When the flop brought Q-Q-6 there was always going to be fireworks. Miraculously Sugarb4355 managed to lay down the boat to an all in bet at the river, not before handing off a chunk of chips of course.
