Hugo Martin column - Sometimes The Lamb Slaughters The Butcher

At first, I thought this £2/5 Not Limit Hold'em game at the Vic was terrible; traps 6, 7, 8 and 9 were two strong Scandies, Polish Chris and Freddy Carle respectively. Trap 3, directly on my left, was Rick Glading (marvellous – oh well, at least I’d have someone to talk to). Trap 4 was another regular whose name I didn’t know, but I did know that he made me look loose, and trap 5 was Peter Charalambos, so that wasn’t exactly value either.

But hold on, who’s this in seat 1? Let’s call him 'the Sri Lankan' because that’s where I reckon he could be from. Now this fella is what the old faces at the Vic like to call 'a Star'. Apart from the usual playing and calling almost all raises with pretty much any two cards, he also had this weirdly random way of three-betting with hands like K-J or small pairs. Mind you, against the Scandies, who are very likely to be opening light, this is probably correct, but he kept doing it when he would be out of position, plus his reraises weren’t exactly that large either.

A typical coup would go like this: Sri Lankan limps, maybe another player limps too and now one of the Scandies would raise, making it, say, £25 to play. Polish Chris would now call and so would Fred as all these guys were playing deep. Back to the Sri Lankan and he would now three-bet to £80 which naturally everybody would call. I’m not too sure whether bloating the pot when you are out of position to three strong players is a good idea, but this guy seemed to think it was. Essentially, there was no strategic thought behind these raises; it was just because he liked his hand.

He was a nice guy and kept telling me how he had a feeling he would have a big hand soon, etc. Funnily enough, he wasn’t wrong, and all of a sudden he’s won a big pot off Anders, one of the Scandies, when he plays the nut-flush draw aggressively and hits it on the river. The very next hand he’s owning Fred on a double ace board when Fred bets £600 into about £400 on the river and the Sri Lankan insta-calls with AQ. “Well done,” says Fred stoically.

In fact, I recall this Sri Lankan winning four sizable pots in a row at one point. I nearly blew it for the whole table when, after his heater had cooled off momentarily and he had folded a few hands, I jokingly told him that seeing as he was now locking it up he might as well rack up his chips and go home, to which he said: "Yeah, good idea," and went over to the cash desk and got a rack! Luckily the allure and sickness of poker is too strong and the rack soon lay on the floor, forgotten and gathering dust.

Sometimes the Lettuce Eats the Rabbit

As the night wore on the Sri Lankan relished his role as the giant crusher; Polish Chris paid him off a couple of times with what may have been questionable calls and then all of a sudden a gargantuan pot developed between the Sri Lankan and Anders with Anders calling off all his chips on the river. By this stage, the Sri Lankan had Anders covered, and when he saw the Sri Lankan’s A-K for 'top-top' on a king-high board, that was enough to send Anders home. A huge scalp for the Sri Lankan and a very unlikely turn of events. Sometimes, when a star builds up a head of steam they are unstoppable.

What’s interesting is that I bet if you asked Anders or Chris about those pots that they lost to the Sri Lankan they would have replied, “If it had been anyone else but him I would have folded,” which is the standard response when having suffered the ignominy of paying off the Star.

Seeing as I was super-card dead, I had plenty of time to observe the Sri Lankan’s play and to my eyes he was one of those Stars that didn’t really bluff. Sure, he was a classic calling station and he tended to over-value certain hands sometimes, thus betting like gangbusters where other players may have taken a more cautious approach (the A-K coup with Anders being a good example), but, essentially, when he bet, it meant that he usually had it, you just had to work out what he thought was worth betting. He wasn’t a complete fool; there was one hand where he did decide not to bet a flush on the river when the board double-paired. Having said that, this was probably one of the few times he actually put some thought into what his opponent could be holding.

Sometimes the Pigeons Shoot Back

And so it was armed with all this info that the following hand took place: one limper and then Chris on the button made it £20. The Sri Lankan called from the small blind and I looked down at 7-5 of diamonds in the big blind. Ay ay! Finally a hand! Suited Heinz no less, surely this would be the pot where I double up? I called and the original limper folded. By the way, I had about £1,200 in front of me and everyone else concerned had me covered.

Here comes the flop: 5h-2s-5s. Wow, maybe I really am going to double up. The Sri Lankan checked. I quite like donk-betting into the pre-flop raiser in these spots, but in this instance I opted to check as it looked like quite a safe flop for Chris to c-bet on and I fancied there was a very good chance the Sri Lankan would call any c-bet that Chris made, thus ensuring plenty of dead money out there for me. Yum, yum, I was positively drooling.

As expected, Chris bet £75 and then the Sri Lankan rather excitedly check-raised to £175. Eh? What the fuck?! I was gonna check-raise, not him, that wasn’t part of the plan. Jeez, maybe I should just ship it all in here, but that seems a bit rash. I guess I’ll just call and see what happens. I called and Chris folded. All right, this is looking good.

Turn card: 4s. Hmm, obviously the flush and the straight just got there, but also one of the hands with a five in it that I’m beating just got there too. The Sri Lankan checked. I honestly didn’t know what this meant. Was he checking a five because he was scared of the flush? Or was he checking a flush because he suddenly noticed that it was a paired board?

I checked back – in hindsight I wish I had bet. After all, that check by the Sri Lankan looked pretty weak. Like I said, he was fairly straightforward in his play; if he liked his hand, he bet, if he didn’t, he would check, but, of course, that meant he would be checking hands like 8-5, 9-5, and so on (and if you don’t think this guy was capable of playing Q-5 for a raise, then think again). I guess he would check a super-monster like a straight-flush, but would he also check, say, a 10-high flush? Probably not, but I also doubt that on the flop he would’ve check-raised a 10-high flush draw, so that made that sort of hand less likely. Maybe the nut flush draw would warrant a check-raise on the flop, especially a hand like A-3 of spades, but I also think that a 'blackjack' hand (i.e. an ace and a face) would’ve meant one of his quirky reraises before the flop, so that narrowed down his A-x of spades hands, but surely if he did have the nut-flush he would bet in this spot? Maybe, maybe not.

The river was the Jd and now the Sri Lankan bet £300. Fuck, I went from loving my hand to hating it. Let’s look at that board again: 5h-2s-5s-4s-Jd. Let’s see, I’m tying with three hands (5c with 7c/7h/7s) and beating eight hands (5c with 3c/3d/3h/3s and the 5c with 6c/6d/6h/6s), and everything else I am losing to. I discounted pairs 6-6 up to A-A as I figured all of those would have been reraising preflop and would he really bet 6-6 to T-T on the river? I suppose there is a very small possibility he has gotten cute with Q-Q, K-K and A-A.

Sometimes the Fisherman Throws the Fish Back in the Water

Man, am I really going to fold this? I’ve got three of a kind, dammit! And it’s against a star who only thinks about his own cards. Mind you, whether he is aware of it or not, that £300 bet really looks like a value bet, doesn’t it? God, he looks desperate for a call, plus he did seem very keen on the flop.

Let me tell you dear reader, I really wanted to call. But I had a strong feeling that would have been one of those 'curiosity-kills-the-cat' calls and I’m trying very hard to cut them out of my repertoire. After a long dwell-up, I tossed my cards into the muck whilst simultaneously talking to myself. Yes, I folded. Maybe I ended up levelling myself, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

An amusing postscript to this coup came up a couple of rounds later when the Sri Lankan confided in me, “In that hand by the way, I had a 5”.

“So did I, what was your kicker?” I replied.

The Sri Lankan looked genuinely startled and told me he couldn’t remember. Oh for fuck’s sake, somebody get me a time machine so I can go back and replay the whole hand. When he told me he couldn’t remember his kicker, I believed him. The Sri Lankan was one of those rare players without guile, his answer was sincere. After all, what difference does your kicker make when you flop trips? How could anyone else have a better hand?

Hugo Martin writes for Black Belt Poker, the leading poker social network and training site.