Today’s poker tip is about taking one on the chin. There is not a person out there who has not been on the wrong end of a bad beat; they are annoying, they are infuriating, that the sort of thing that would tempt any WSOP runner up to see if the winners bracelet will fit around the winners neck. There is no doubt that bad beats are the product of luck, and let’s face it, we all need a little luck to win, but you want the luck on your own terms instead of just the product of random chance.
Jason Wheeler was poised to win. He was holding Ace-Queen when the flop gave him the top pair. The board cards were 8d-Qc-10d. Jason started to deliver the killing blow when he threw 120,000 into the pot on the turn. His opponent, Tony Veckey, immediately went all-in, something was rotten in Vegas.
This encounter is a story of two lucks. The last card to fall in this hand was a Queen on the river. With his A-Q, plus another Queen on the board, Wheeler should have been able to overcome most other hands when luck gave him that river Queen. Of course Veckey front loaded his luck by taking a chance on a 9h-Jc, and making a straight on the flop. Had he not connected with the straight, he probably would have folded to Wheeler’s river aggression. By taking his chance early, he insulated himself against the best the river could bring Wheeler; sorry about your damn luck (this quote comes from Robert Roode and James Storm of the wrestling tag team “Beer Money Inc.”).
By contrast, Veckey earlier showed the type of intelligent restraint that helped him win a World Series of Poker bracelet. Earlier in the day he was given the gift of pocket Kings, but when things didn’t feel right, he laid them down to an all-in bet. While most poker tips would disagree with his decision, he wasn’t going to place his tournament future on a pair of Kings and a lot of luck when no cards had hit the board yet. If he was going to trust luck, it would be on his terms.
That is the poker tip for today.
