Playground Poker

At table 19, a recent hand started as a three-way battle between Bradley Smith, Edward Arnold and Schahin Ghiai. As we approached the table the board showed 7d, with Schahin utg.

Schahin checked, and Bradley bet 12,000, called by both Edward and Schahin. The turn was a .

Schahin checked again, and Bradley led out with a bet of 4,200. Edward casually tossed in a high denomination chip, indicating his call. Both players were raised by Schahin, as he made it 11,000 to go. This check-raise was too rich for Bradley’s blood, so when Edward called it was a showdown.

The river was dealt a , after which Schahin shoved all in utg for 35,000. This set up a long period of contemplation for Edward, in which he almost folded, then put his cards down, then stood up, then sat down, then talked out the hand to himself. In the end, he convinced himself that his opponent could only have two pair, Queens and 4s. Unfortunately for him, he was wrong.

Edward:

Schahin:

Schahin had made his straight, and Edward lost half of his stack, frustrated with himself for taking the risk.

Francois Goulet, who has reached two final tables in 2018, in events at Binion’s and the Venetian in Las Vegas, just hit a set of tens.  Preflop, Goulet raised to 600 and both Francois Billard and David Ormsby called. Tony Guglietti then raised 2,200. Both Goulet and Ormsby called and Billard folded.

When the flop came down Tony bet 3,000. Francois called and David folded.

The dealer flipped the turn: . Tony checked and Francois bet 3,500. Tony pondered for a while, but made the call. The river was the and Tony bet 6,000. Without delay, Francois went all in, pushing all his 26,000 chips forward. Tony debated with himself for more than a minute before calling.  But Tony’s hand – – was no match for the pair of tens Francois was holding, which gave him the set.

We are now in level 4, with less than an hour to go before the 45-minute lunch break. However, just prior to the start of level 4, notable player Maxime Heroux almost saw his day end early, as he found himself all in against Jeffrey Cormier.

When we joined the hand the board was showing , and Maxime had shoved for his remaining stack, approximately 35,000. His opponent thought about it carefully, but ultimately decided to opt for caution, not wanting to cripple himself if he guessed wrong.

Jeffrey ended up folding, and Maxime won the pile of chips, totaling about 60,000. He immediately stood up from the table to stretch his legs and perhaps calm his nerves as well.