Being right might have a price

I visit the Borgata in Atlantic City three times a year. The attention to customer service stands out in the hotel, and it’s present in the poker room and in the approach to dealing with players. It’s one of the few casinos that consistently treats poker players like treasured customers — one reason the Borgata has been able to retain (or increase) its tournament prize-pools while many are shrinking.

Poker’s saturation has been great for spreading the game, but it can also spread the player pool thin. Yet year after year at the Borgata, I see new faces in the tournament. The only trouble with having so many unfamiliar players in a tournament is that it can be hard to discern how they play.

I’m not one of those people who think they “do better against pros” (an absurd notion in a game where profits come from the mistakes of others), but I do believe that I have a better sense of what to expect from professionals — that is, I have pretty wellestablished parameters for what they’re capable and incapable of. In many poker situations, I know that an opponent who’s a professional can’t have certain hands, because he knows better than to ever play them that way. This isn’t always the case with amateurs; sometimes I’m lost because I have no clue what to expect.

At the WPT Borgata Poker Open in September, I was seated next to an unfamiliar player after the dinner break. We’d met briefly during the player party held during the break. I knew he wasn’t a professional player, but I had no idea how seriously he played.

The table was new because my stack was new — I had bought in during dinner break after busting my first bullet right before we adjourned. I won a few small pots in the first orbit, then the player on my right raised to 1,200 in early position with blinds of 250-500. I was behind him with A♦ K ♣ and reraised to 3,000. Everyone folded back to him, and he quickly made the call.

The flop came A♣ 6 ♠ 2 ♠ , and when he checked, I decided to check back. I’m not sure that was the best play, but I thought he might have been new to poker and more likely to fold pocket pairs on the ace-high f lop than call many bets with them. I also thought it was possible he’d take my check for weakness, and make bluffs on the turn (and, hopefully, river) with a hand that was essentially drawing dead.

After I checked, the turn brought the 8 ♠ . My opponent checked again, and I bet 4,500. He counted out his chips, then added 6,000 more and raised.

I was stuck. I had checked the flop so that he’d put more chips in the pot. But I didn’t know if he could run a big bluff, or if he would only take big risks with a strong hand. I decided to call once and evaluate his river action, but I suspected I was wasting money.

The river was the 10 ♣ , and after 20 or 30 seconds of what seemed like posturing, my opponent went all in for 18,000. I didn’t think too long before tossing my cards into the muck and saying “Nice hand” to my opponent.

“Nice fold,” he said as he tabled the A♠ Q ♠ .

It feels better being right when I don’t waste the money to find out. Dunst is a poker pro and host of “Raw Deal” on World Poker Tour telecasts.