Pokerstars.com – Unorthodox Plays
Category: Poker
www.pokerstars.com – I chose to write about this subject, partly because I saw a player at my tournament last week play his hand in what most players would call, a foolish way. This particular player was very inexperienced at the game, but had come along anyway to give it a try. Later on in the tournament, one of the very experienced players at the table raised 1,500 preflop, which was a sizeable bet with the blinds as they were. Our inexperienced player took a look at his cards, and called.
The flop came down (10,7,10) and our inexperienced player picked up his chips and made a very big raise of 5,000 chips. After thinking for quite a while the opposing player pushed his last few chips in, and once called, showed pocket kings. But the raiser, and inexperienced player, of course showed (K,10). By pretty much going entirely against the grain in terms of how you should play the position he was in, this player had won a very big pot. The very fact that he shoved a huge amount of chips into the middle, made his opponent think his pocket kings must be good. Because how many players flop trips and lead out with a bet almost the size of their opponents stack? It was so unorthodox that it made his opponent misread the situation.
Granted, it was very lucky to catch a flop of two tens, and he shouldn’t really have even called preflop in the first place, but once he made the huge bet, he actually convinced his opponent he did not have a ten. I would not recommend playing poker like this personally, but it just goes to show, that being unpredictable in the way you play can reap great benefits sometimes.