Hands On Your Fold-'Em-Or-Hold-'Em Guide To Poker

Hard Poker Truth: If you believe you have the best hand, get all your chips in the middle. Sure, that can be a dicey thing to do with a small pair, but that brings us to the next Hard Poker Truth: Put your opponent on a hand. Thomas "Thunder" Keller put all that together in a big way during the World Poker Tour's Mirage Poker Challenge in 2004. With the blinds at $2,000-$4,000, Keller drew A-3 of spades in early position and made it $12,000 to go, a standard raise three times the big blind. John D'Agostino smooth-called with A-8 of clubs.
"My initial read when he called was I didn't feel like he had a huge hand," Keller said. The flop comes 2-3 of clubs, jack of diamonds. "I decide to check," Keller said. "I don't know if I have the best hand. I want to see what he does. I figure if he has ace-king or ace-queen, I have him in pretty bad shape, so I'm not too worried about giving him a free card. "D'Agostino bet $30,000, a little bit over the pot. "It didn't feel like the kind of bet he would make with a jack," Keller said. "I felt if he had a jack, he would've bet smaller. I didn't think he would call me with deuces or 3s, so I didn't put him on a set."His bet just felt goofy." So, Keller re-raised $40,000.
"He thinks for about two seconds and he moves all in on me," Keller said. "I've put about half my [$200,000] stack into a pot with a pair of 3s, which is not usually where you want to be. "Almost any player right now would give his hand up. You figure you're up against a big hand. I made a move on this guy raising the turn, and he went all in on me, so what's going on here? "I finally determined from the way he bet so fast - he didn't consider slow-playing - I was sure he had a flush draw. So, I called off the rest of my stack with a pair of 3s. He starts shaking his head and turns over his ace-8 of clubs. The turn comes a 5 of spades. The river comes a 9 of hearts. Keller's treys win.
"People were talking about it after," Keller said. "'How did you call that?' I committed so many of my chips. From my read, I was extremely confident that he had a flush draw. In that spot, if I know he has a flush draw, I have to call."