Lady Luck reigns
in the short term
Such a hand took place late on Day 1B of the Mid-States Poker Tour Running Aces $1,100 Main Event in Columbus, Minn., back in February.
With the blinds at 1,000-2,000 plus an ante of 300, Chris Meyers raised to 4,000 holding A
As far as strategy, all three played their hands exactly as they should have. Meyers was obviously going to raise with the best hand in poker, and in order to get action, he raised the minimum. Unfortunately for Bell, he looked down at a nice pocket pair, which justified his shoving his 10-big-blind stack (a 20,000 stack, a big blind of 2,000, so 10 big blinds in his stack). Hartwig also looked down at a quality hand and understandably moved all in to try to isolate Bell. Meyers had an easy call.
As the cards lay, Meyers was a 72 percent favorite, Bell had a 19 percent chance to win, and Hartwig had a 7 percent chance. Even after the flop came down 10
Bell needed to find one of the two remaining nines in the deck on the turn or river in order to survive — something that would happen 9 percent of the time — while Hartwig had a 13 percent chance of either catching another king or hitting running straight or flush cards.
Remember, this is a hand about bad beats, so you can probably guess what’s coming. The dealer burned and turned the 7
The dealer burned one last time and put out the 3
As the old poker saying goes, the game is 90 percent skill and 10 percent luck in the long run, but in the short term, the reverse is true. Clearly, luck plays a big role in each individual hand. Everyone can play their hands to perfection but not get the outcome they want and oftentimes deserve.
All you can do is play your cards the best you can. Once you do, keep your fingers crossed.