Losing to Quads

In NLHE, unless the stacks are huge, its pretty much accepted by most players that when you have KK against AA you are going to lose all of your chips. In PLO, a similar situation occurs with the top full house against quads. When you have the second nuts, its sometimes tempting to consider that the opponent has the nuts, but you probably just get the money in anyway: after all, how many times do people show down all kinds of silly hands that they just shouldn’t be involved with?

On Saturday I limped in late position with KK92 single suited and five of us saw the flop of KJ8 (all diamonds – of which I had none). A loose-aggressive player bet the pot ($20) and a fish raised him to $56. This had to be a flush, probably the nut-flush, but I thought I could get paid off if the board paired, so I cold-called.

After I called I realised that I was making a big mistake. If the initial bettor had the nut flush, or maybe even the bare Ace of diamonds, he could re-raise and I wouldn’t be able to profitably continue unless the fish came along too. Also, I needed the board to pair and it was likely that the flop bettor had a set too if he didn’t have the flush. This meant that not only did he have some of my outs against the flush, he could potentially stack me if he hit quads.

The flop bettor just called the raise, meaning he likely had a lower set, but was it JJ or 88?

The turn card was the Jack of spades and when it got checked to me I bet $104. This was enough to ensure that I could get the rest in on the river without betting the full pot. I decided that I was going to bet the river if it came checked to me: extracting full value from 88 or maybe even KJ. The flop bettor called and the flop raiser folded: he obviously realised his flush was no longer any good.

The river was the Queen of diamonds, which made a possible straight flush. My opponent bet the pot. I stuck to the view that I can’t fold the top full house and called $236 all-in only to get shown quad Jacks, which was now actually only the second nuts.

I think with a bit more time I could have found a fold here.

On Sunday I found a good way to lose to quads, if such a thing exists.

I was the 3rd and final player who called a raise to $14 with QQ63 and I bet out the pot when the flop came Q74 with two hearts. This was the 3rd pot in quick succession where I had made a pot-sized bet and I reckoned it might look suspicious. Totally according to plan, I got raised the full pot by the villain from the quads hand above, happy to re-raise all-in knowing I would be at least a 55% favourite.

The board paired the 4 and the river was another 4, resulting in the chips sliding the wrong way across the table to my opponent! He had got his chips in with the truly awful K774, needing either the last 7, the last two 4s or two of the last three Kings.

I was a whopping 95% favourite against an opponent who probably thought he was in good shape. If I must lose, this is the way that I prefer it to happen.