When Poker After Dark, the hit NBC poker show, was holding their “Brilliant Minds” theme week, with six players who based their poker game on math- based strategies, the game became conservative – but brilliantly so. Many times players like Andy Bloch, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, David Sklansky, Bill Chen, Brandon Adams and Jimmy Warren would be at a Poker After Dark table and hand after hand would go by with no action. It was much the same this time, but with a few smart twists.
In this hand Chris lead things off with a medium hand in six way play:
He raised it three times the big blind, which in this case was $600. This is a standard raise, or full raise as it is sometimes called, and so far most players at the table opened with just this amount, so as to disguise the strength of their hand.
Only Andy Bloch deigned to call, holding and even worse hand:
These two had faced each other many times in the past, and knew each other’s skills sets very well indeed.
The Flop came down:
There was nothing much special about this flop. It didn’t give either player any advantage to speak of, nor what is a very threatening flop. So what should the players do?
Typically in poker the last player to act has the advantage, because they get more information upon which to act. But sometimes it is better to be first, because you can fool your opponent into thinking you do have a good hand. Chris knew this, of course, and so he bet out $900 in tourney chips and cash. The stratagem worked, and Andy folded out of the way.
