Hand to Talk About

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Everyone:

I managed to get out last night and played a little $80-$160 hold 'em at The Bellagio. An interesting hand came up which I want to relate here.

First a little background. Our hero in this hand is someone who has been playing this limit for some time now, perhaps a year and a half. She clearly plays too loose and too aggressive, but did nothing but win for most of this time. However, I understand that her good luck has run out on her the past couple of months.

Here's the hand. Before the flop, six players including the blinds were in for one bet each. Our hero was second to last to act on the flop with the player on the button, who I would classify as weak loose, also active. (I had folded my hand before the flop.)

The flop came A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]5[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]5[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img].

Everyone checked to the player on the button who bet $80. Our hero immediately check raised, even though there were three players still to act before her, and instead of putting in the required amount of $160, she put $320 in chips in front of her. It appeared that not only did she not know it wasn't her turn, but that she thought it was fourth street as well as the flop.

Needless to say it took a little bit of time to straighten this out. But the three players in front of our hero did fold, her bet was changed to $160, and the player on the button did call the raise.

Fourth street was a blank and our hero bet and was called. The river was a queen and again our hero bet and was called. She turned over a queen-ten and the player on the button took the pot with an ace.

All comments welcome.

Best wishes,
Mason