I know they have it, but what is "it"

The original blog here has turned into a CardPlayer.com article, so I thought I'd post the (unedited) Article here in place of the original blog.....

Cardplayer Article 29# Submission Sept 30th, 2005

by Thomas 'Thunder' Keller

Column Name: Thunder on Poker

Article Name: Pub Poker

One of my good friends Ray Powers from Chandler, AZ - an avid pub poker fan - and I have been discussing poker a lot lately via aol instant messenger as he is trying desperately to improve his game and I often have a lot of deadtime between playing people 300-600 headup holdem, omaha 8 or better, and tripledraw on ultimatebet.com. Recently he described his last pub poker foray and I found it so amusing that I felt compelled to share it with all of you guys my wonderful readers! So without further adeui, here is a brave step into the unknown, mans' final frontier, pub poker! The following tale is told by my friend Ray Powers with my commentary interwined in italics.

Last night was pub poker night. Jay, Mike, Leigh, and Brad were all there with me to play (well except Leigh, who does not play). Dan did not show, the slacker. The best part was his reason was that he was broke. Uh, it's a free event, and its not like one of us wouldn't have bought him a beer or something. Whatever. Ray chose not to envite me this time, I guess he probably thinks that I would find playing poker for free boring, and he is probably right, but I am always up for having a drink with good company, even if poker has to be involved.

I told the group that we had been slacking, and at least two of us need to make the final table tonight. Alas though, it was not meant to be as I was the only one to survive past the second break, and that was mainly because I had no hands the whole night. I literally played five hands the entire night. I went out 12th out of 64. Thats okay Ray, you have to learn to enjoy losing, plus finishing 12th in a tourney is a lot better than I have done lately.

However, all was not lost as I did have a fun time when we had "poker kid" at our table. This kid looks like he should not even be in the bar, as I would put him at 19 or so at best. He appears to have spent a long time practicing chip tricks, and whenever he gets in a hand, he puts on his cool reflective sun glasses so we can't read him, and acts like Mr. Professional at a free pub poker tournament. Its pretty funny. It was made all the more funny when, short stacked on the big blind, he folded in an unraised pot thinking the pot had been raised and would have ended up winning the monster pot with a full house. When we pointed out his mistake, he through his glasses and chips down and got all pissed off. Sounds like a young Mike Matusow. Just kidding, love ya Mikey!

Hey poker kid, this is free pub poker. I'd tell you to have a drink and chill, but I don't think you're old enough to drink. Regardless, play 'seriously' if you want, but realize that this is a free event for basically nothing, and stop treating it like the final table of the World Series of Poker.

I think I am misplaying these free events because my rockish tendencies towards hands is leading me to believe that people have more than they actually do more often than not. During one of the hands I did get to play, I looked down at pocket tens.This looked like a gold mine compared to my average nightly hand of 2-5 or 3-9 so I raised from late position to three times the big blind and got two callers.

The flop came down K54 with two clubs. I figured the action would check to me and I would place out a feeler bet to see if this flop hit anyone big. Things did not happen as I envisioned. The first person very confidently bet about three-forths the pot and the next played called with no hesitation. Both players looked extremely confident, so I figured at least one or maybe both had a king. If not, one or both could easily of had a straight or a flushdraw giving the field a ton of outs to beat me even if my tens were actually the best hand at the moment, so I folded when the action got to me. If only one player had stayed in I would have considered calling or coming over the top, but with both just oozing the feeling that they had the best hand, I decided to muck and live to fight another day, I still had a decent sized stack at this point so I did not feel committed to this pot.

They continued to bet and call down to the river, where one player turned over A-5, and the other A-4 respectively. So as it turns out I actually mucked the best hand when both of my opponents combined had only six outs to beat me, the remaining two fours, fives, and aces. Both players were extremely confident in their middle and bottom pairs respectively, and I bailed on the pot thinking I was beat to two outs, whereas if I felt confident that I had the best hand I would have definitely stayed in and likely raised the flop.

While its easy to think that I just got outplayed in this spot by someone trying to force me off my medium pair, that's not what I got from these two opponents. They both honestly felt their lower pairs were good, and exuded the confidence of having the "best hand." This makes it extremely difficult for me to read them since I get the feeling from them that they are very confident that they are holding the best hand, but don't have the slightest idea of what a strong or weak hand really is considering the board and the previous action.

I told my friend Ray that I actually liked his play of laying down on the flop in this spot (especially since he still had a lot of chips left) and that one of the toughest part of playing amatuers is reading them since as the old poker proverb goes, you cant read someone who doesn't even know what they are holding themselves. Luckily though, against amatuer players like these one can afford to lay down the best hand frequently since these players are often all to willing to get all their chips in with any pair when your holding a very big hand (at least top pair top kicker on a nonthreatening board.) Now if Ray was short-stacked in this spot I definitely think he has to move in here and hope to pick the pot up right then or hope that if one of his opponents does call then that his tens hold up or that he spikes a wonderful ten on the turn or the river if he is in fact beat.

Thomas "Thunder" Keller is a 25-year-old professional poker player and one of poker's young and rising stars. He can often be found playing at UltimateBet.com under the name thunderkeller. To learn more about him, go to his website at www.thunderkeller.com. Feel free to contact him at thunderkeller@yahoo.com. Also feel free to contact my friend Ray Powers at raymodnjpowers@yahoo.com and check out his blog at http://raypowers.blogspot.com/ .