Potted Meat Poker

Professional Poker Players

So much can be learned from simply watching professionals play. Not only during a World Series of Poker tournament, either. Some of the best moves are during these huge, high stakes poker games.

Here’s a hand where a few players already dropped out. Sammy Farha has King, Q of diamonds and opens the betting, raising the pot to $6,400. While he chatters back and forth with Doyle Brunson, Patrick Antonius quietly bumps the bet to $16K, and just there you can feel it’s going to be one of those hands. Just watching Antonius, you can sense his enjoyment from making his move while the attention was on two other players…like he was “getting away with something.”

Doyle folds, but Farha of Titan Poker calls with a wad of cash while trying to arrange his chips – multitasking at its finest. Antonius, by the way, has the weaker hand of the two with J, 9 of hearts. The pot sits at a modest $34,200.

Flop helps both players, 6D, 9D and 3C. So Antonius catches top pair, and Farha has four to a flush with two more to come. This is a tough situation for both players, and this is what I’m talking about when I say you can learn by just watching these guys. What do they do here? How would I play it, from both sides of the fence?

Antonius, liking his pair, bets $20K. The largest bet so far in the game, but not a huge move, which is somewhat revealing in my opinion. Farha seems to agree, and raises to $100K. This forces Antonius to sit and think…or allows him to play like he’s struggling with a decision while fondling his chips. I personally think he’s just considering how much to raise back.

And…I’m right. He goes all-in, currently with a slight statistical disadvantage of 47%. Farha never takes his eyes off the community cards and calls, bringing the pot to just under $1M. Now the talking begins, and neither player will say what they have. Farha thinks Antonius of FullTilt is bluffing – he’s not exactly right. I think the audience is hating the discussion because it’s only adding to the buildup before the turn and the river.

Now it gets crazy, and they run the deck 4 times, meaning there’s four turns and rivers and they split up the pot four times. The first one is 3D, 9S, which first gives Farha the huge advantage only to see Antonius steal it back for the win at the end. This is, by far, the most interesting of the runs.

At the end, Farha took one pot, and lost ¾ of the pot.

Aside from the unconventional finish, it’s a textbook example of learning from the professionals successful decisions – and their mistakes.