Fame — and poker fortune — can often depend on only one hand
At the 2017 Mid-States Poker Tour Indiana State Poker Championship — a tournament that attracted 320 entrants to the Tropicana Evansville — a unique hand played out involving six players.
If you watch a lot of poker, you know that a six-way hand at a final table is a rare occurrence.
It happened in Level 24, with blinds at 12,000-24,000 plus an ante of 4,000. Sitting on a stack of 555,000, Ross Bryant looked down at Ad Ac in early position and raised to 55,000. “Big” Al Hedin (853,000), who was next to act, called with 8d 8s, and then the shortstacked Satish Thakur (315,000) just flat- called with 9c 9d.
This would be Bryant’s first spot of bad luck. You see, with a raise and caller in front, most players would shove their 13-big-blind stack into the middle with pocket nines. For whatever reason, Thakur opted to just call, which set in motion a series of events that changed the course of the tournament.
From there, chip leader Charles Payne (2.1 million) called from the hijack seat with As Jh, and five-timeWorld Series of Poker Circuit ring winner Kurt Jewell (535,000) looked down at 6h 6s in the small blind.
Jewell considered moving all in himself, but he ultimately settled on a call. That priced in Terrence Esparza (494,000), who called the additional 31,000 from the big blind with 10s 3h.
That meant six players saw the flop, which came down 6c Kd 6d to give Jewell quads.
Jewell and Esparza both checked. Bryant, who couldn’t know his aces had been cracked (his second spot of bad luck), bet 300,000. Action folded back to Jewell, who moved all in for 476,000. Esparza folded, and Bryant called.
Given that Payne had folded an ace, Bryant was drawing dead and sent over most of his chips after the 3s was put out on the turn followed by the 2d on the river.
It was an unfortunate outcome for Bryant, but not due solely to the fact that he lost with aces.
In fact, when you put these hands into a poker odds calculator, you’ll find that pocket aces will hold up only 37.3 percent of the time, while 61.9 percent of the time they’ll get cracked against so many possible pocket pairs.
A six-way hand involving four pocket pairs is rare, and what made this hand so tragic for Bryant was the way it played out. Had Thakur shoved with his pair of nines, chances are that Payne, Jewell and Esparza all would have folded. Bryant then would have moved all in over the top with aces, and Hedin would have ditched his pocket eights. If that happened, Bryant would have eliminated Thakur.
Instead, Bryant busted out in eighth place for $8,340, Jewell finished sixth for $13,592 and Thakur went on to win the tournament for $71,047.
Had he shoved those pocket nines, there would be a different 2017 MSPT Indiana State Poker Champion right now.