Sick beat, courtesy of Men the Master

[Hollywade]

I normally do not tell bad beat stories, for a few reasons, but I decided to make an exception today based on the circumstances and the severity of the beat.

Today I played Event #6, $550 NL, at the WSOP Circuit Event at Caesar's Indiana. For some reason, the poker room managers decided to run a bunch of live games regardless of the fact that Event #6 was being played at noon and was followed by Event #7 ($550 PLO w/ rebuys) at 3 PM. As a result, the room could not accomodate the 400+ players at noon. Therefore, there were over 100 alternates, which seems ridiculous to me when they could just not run some of those side games for a little while...but that's another story.

Anyway, about an hour and a half in, they are still seating alternates when a player goes broke at our table. Guess who the lucky alternate is...Men "The Master" Nguyen. Of course this creates quite a buzz at our table and among the railbirds. Not too many pros were around this week. The only other "TV" pro I saw was Young Phan.

Men was a riot. He sits down and starts talking and joking around with everyone. It was a blast. Plus, he signed autographs for everyone at the table and a couple railbirds as well.

Sometimes on TV he comes off as a jerk and I know he has a bad reputation in some circles, but he was a really nice and fun guy today. Maybe he only gets a little abrasive when he drinks. He said he won't drink before 6 PM.

He intended to play the Omaha at 3 PM, and it was already 1:30 by this time. He was getting into a lot of pots and mixing it up. At the 50-100 level, he was down to about 700 (we started with 2,000). One hand, he open-pushed from middle position and some guy near the button with less than 2,000 himself decided to look Men up with KJ offsuit. Flop and turn are all rags, but Men spikes a 10 on the river to stay alive. The table goes nuts.

About 10 minutes later came one of the sickest hands I've ever been involved in. I'm down to 975 myself thanks to a previous cooler. I pick up AQ of diamonds in middle position and raise to 300. It folds to Men in the small blind, who immediately gives us the patented "All you can eat, baby," and puts his stack in. He has me covered by a few hundred. Well, I figured he had me beat, but AQ was the hand I picked, and since I already put in 30% of my stack, I figured it was good enough to go broke with there, rather than leave myself with 675 and the blinds soon to be 100-200 with a 25 ante.

I said, "This hand can't be good, but it would be pretty cool to get knocked out by the Men the Master." I call.

Men says, "Suited," and turns over AJ of hearts. Sweet. (Me 67%)

The flop comes Qc5d3d. Nice. Very nice. (Me 98%)

Turn is the Ks. This improves Men from 0 outs to 3 outs. Haha. (Me 93%)

You guessed it...River: 10h. (Men 100%)

The table explodes, obviously, and I'm just dumbfounded. I shake Men's hand and make a quiet exit. He said something about how he can't believe it and I said, "Yeah I have no idea how I lost with that flop."

It's probably the sickest beat I've ever taken considering the flop, but it's a story I'll be telling for a long time. Cool that it was Men who did it.

[Phntm]

I guess you never play on stars...

[JoseGonzlez]

i thought an army of undercovers was casing men around the country for beating his wife?

any there?

[sonofstev]

I can't help thinking that, since he had a few hundred more chips than you, if you had shoved with your AQs pre-flop in middle position, Men would not have called with AJs for his tournament life. It makes little sense to raise a mere 1.5x for 30% of your chips here - since the blinds are 100/200, you're really in an all in or fold situation (checking the blind levels, you have an M of only 3.25, about to go down to 1.86).

Am I wrong?

[GTL]

[ QUOTE ]
I can't help thinking that, since he had a few hundred more chips than you, if you had shoved with your AQs pre-flop in middle position, Men would not have called with AJs for his tournament life. It makes little sense to raise a mere 1.5x for 30% of your chips here - since the blinds are 100/200, you're really in an all in or fold situation (checking the blind levels, you have an M of only 3.25, about to go down to 1.86).

Am I wrong?

[/ QUOTE ]

for all the knowledge of M and your ability to calculate percentages, i think you would know that it is impossible to raise 1.5 times the BB. they were playing the 50-100 level.

(i still think the guy should have pushed) it's never a terrible beat when your stack is 9 times the big blind in the early stages of a tournament.

[Hollywade]

[ QUOTE ]
I can't help thinking that, since he had a few hundred more chips than you, if you had shoved with your AQs pre-flop in middle position, Men would not have called with AJs for his tournament life.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is so not the point. I WANT him to move in with AJ. Obviously. I'm not trying to win 150 chips with AQ suited when half the players have already folded. I want action. Sometimes, it's going to be action from a worse hand. Even when it isn't, I'm willing to gamble with AQ suited in this spot. I personally do not like open shoving when I have more than 6X the BB early in a tourney. That is definitely not the point nor the reason I posted this.

I'm not complaining about the beat. As I said, I was not angry. Actually impressed. I could not believe that I lost after that flop. Just thought it was a good story and that people would appreciate the fact that I went from 98% percent to losing against the most well-known player in the building at the time.

[Hollywade]

[ QUOTE ]
Am I wrong?

[/ QUOTE ]

You're definitely not wrong. However, I am of the mindset that it is good to encourage action from a hand that you can beat. If I shove 975 into a pot of 150, the odds of me getting called by a hand I'm favored against are not good.

On the other hand, if I make a standard raise, there's a fairly good chance that someone might call with KQ, AJ, or something like 66 or 55. This is particularly true if it's an idiot who's not paying attention to the size of my stack. I have no qualms about getting it all in against these hands.

This post was not intended to seek advice on how to play AQ suited when your M is less than 7. I played it exactly like I wanted to.

I just posted it hoping that people would appreciate the ridiculousness of the beat. It was rather silly, after all.

[cpitt398]

you expect them to shut down cash games that have been going all night?

[Hollywade]

[ QUOTE ]
you expect them to shut down cash games that have been going all night?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, yes I do. It's the World Series of Poker. If not shut them down, maybe have the foresight not to run so many the night before.

Just seems like a WSOP Circuit Event is slightly more important that 10 guys sitting around playing 3-6 hold'em...but that's just me.

Once again, almost everyone who has replied to my post has completely ignored the point of the story. Gotta love it.

[gdsdiscgolfer]

No one cares about your beat.