Royal Flush Poker

This was a hand that took place in my live event on Wednesday at Poker.Ladbrokes.com, and involved my opponent in the big blind with about 7,000 chips, and myself on the button with around 12,000 chips and (As,Ks). I had raised to 600 preflop, and my opponent called.

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The flop came down (10h,7s,5s) and I had picked up a Flush draw. I immediately felt certain that my opponent did not have an overpair (he would have reraised preflop) and had not connected with the flop.  It was perhaps possible that he had (A,10) but I thought most possibilities of a strong hand were pretty unlikely, unless he had a middle pair and had made a set. At this point, I felt that betting out would be exactly what he expected of me whether I had connected or not, and so any subsequent call or raise would be difficult to decipher.

With this in mind, I decided on something creative. I felt it very likely he had not connected at all, and I also thought the size of his raise would confirm my suspicions after I checked. Sure enough, I checked, and he raised it 1,200. This was obviously a strong bet and one which hinted he wanted to pick up the poker pot there and then. I think if he had the hand which I feared most in the flopped set, he would bet smaller.

My main concern aside from this was (A,10) and my feeling was that he would not call an all in raise with this hand.
I pushed it all in, and he began thinking for a long time.  I was very sure he was going to fold, but of course I had my plan B of the big Flush draw if he did call. This safety net, along with the fact that he didn’t have enough chips to critically damage my stack meant that this play wasn’t just reckless courage, it was very calculated.

He did indeed fold, and I picked up a couple more thousand chips.