[JD9712]

I agree with the other people; if you cant believe things like that can happen you either havent been playing online for very long, or perhaps you should give online poker a miss because instances such as this are an inevitability.

Let me share with you a situation I found myself in about a month ago:

I was playing in a $10/$20 NL Hold ‘em casher on partypoker about a month ago, full ring. On my right were two very loose players with around their original $2000 in chips having fluctuated greatly, I had around $4000 having profited greatly from their loose play, and on my right was a very tight player with a stack of similar size to mine who had made his money out of the top 4 hands only from my observations, so I had a lot of thinking to do practically each hand. On the small blind I picked up pocket Aces; the table folds around to the cut-off position, this player bets $400, the button raises to $1000, I (obviously) re-raise all in. The big blind calls for his entire stack, the cut-off calls for his stack, and the button calls for his stack. I cannot believe my luck at this point: $12.5k pot with aces.

The cards are flipped: The cut-off has KK, the button has JJ, I show my AA, and the big blind has 4-3 off-suit.

The board read as follows: 4 3 4 3 4

I realise that this board is entirely as possible in live play as it is in online play. Any other situation I would welcome this board. The part that interests me is that faced with a raise of 20xBB, a re-raise to 50xBB, a re-re-raise covering his entire stack, this player, who was one of the tightest I have observed to date found a way to call all-in with 4-3 off-suit. If the player had decided to raise with 4-3, I could understand it as being a move taking advantage of his early steady play; but to call 3 raises for his entire stack does not add up.

I have the hand history direct from partypoker.com detailing this; if anyone is interested in seeing it I’d be happy to pass it on. I have questioned partypoker about this particular hand and received only standard "our processes are rigorously scrutinised and our randomisation passes statutory guidelines..." etc etc etc.

$4000 comes and $4000 goes – and there was about a 30-odd percent chance that one of the other hands would beat me anyway; however to see a player call an all-in with 4-3 offsuit and make quads + trips left a bad taste in my mouth for a long while.

(As a side note, I recovered my lost money over 16 hours of play, only to lose $5000 when beaten with AA by KK when the flop came AK2 rainbow).

So if you're thinking for a moment that stories like the one you told are impossible, improbable, or in any way, irregular; OR, that any other online player should feel sorry for you; you should probably re-evaluate your choice of hobby. I'm Alan Jones.