Hard Poker Truth: Sometimes you cannot get away from a hand and you go broke no matter how you play it.
Those kinds of tough beats happen to players at all levels, whether you’re playing $1-$2 limit games all the way up to the big $10,000 buy-in tournaments that pay out more than $1 million, whether you’re a newbie or a former champion.
Ron Rose, who captured the World Poker Tour’s World Poker Open and the WPT Battle of Champions, saw a chance to make a big move in the WPT’s Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio in Las Vegas last December.
He had $67,000 in chips on the second day. The chip leader, Tony Guoga, the loud and sometimes humiliating Australian pro, was the tournament chip leader sitting one seat to the left of Rose.
Action folded around to Rose in the small blind, where he found K-Q of hearts. He raised three times the big blind, making it $3,000 to go. In the big blind, Guoga raised another $5,000. Rose called.
Don Rose
King of hearts
Queen of hearts
The flop
King of clubs
5 of hearts
4 of hearts
The flop came K-5-4, two hearts. Rose bet $12,000. Guoga raised again.
“I have the second-nut flush draw and top pair,” said Rose, a former Ohio businessman who is also a bridge Life Master. “At that point I move all in for the remaining $50,000 or so. He called.”
But neither player turned over their cards. The turn came the K of diamonds. That’s when the players showed their cards.
“What does he have?” Rose asked. “He had K-5 offsuit He turned a full house. Last card, I’m dead to a queen
River’s a blank.”
The idea is to get all your money in the middle,which is what Rose thought he was doing with top pair and the second- nut flush draw. But Guoga had flopped top two pair and was about a 55-45 percent favorite.
“I already knew going in that he plays wild cards, disconnected cards, offsuits,” Rose said. “I didn’t want him to have that particular setup.
“Even if he has a pair of aces there, I still have nine outs twice (two chances to catch one of the nine remaining hearts) to beat him. The king on the turn kills me.”
But even if he hadn’t gone all in on the flop, Rose was still playing a hand he wouldn’t have been able to throw away.
“When a king comes on the turn, I love that hand even better,” Rose said, referring to the trips he held. “I’ve got a queen kicker. The only thing I was worried about was A-K
“Sometimes in poker, no matter how you play the hand you can go broke on it because you have a hand that you just can’t get away from. Sometimes it works out that way.”
Table talk
Second-nut flush draw: A flush draw is four cards to a flush; the nut flush draw if four cards to a flush while holding the ace of that suit; the second-nut flush draw means you are holding the king of that suit.
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srosenbloom@tribune.com
