Sometimes it can be truly staggering how little self-awareness some players have at the poker table. We all like to think of ourselves as cool and calculated, truly brilliant poker strategists, and God knows, maybe there are one or two among us that actually lives up to their own internal hype, but I would argue that none of it actually matters, all that really counts is what your opponent sees when the look across the table at you.
Which brings us neatly to Saturday night and the Omaha treble chance. I had the great pleasure of being at the table with Frank Dunleavy, who has won more tournaments last week than I have all year, and with Shane “Rebuy” Keary. Anyway, along comes a flop of 5,7,9 with 2 hearts, Shane gets it all in with 8,9,J,K with king high hearts and after a bit of consideration Frank decides to call with some random bag of shit containing a 7 and a 5. It comes blank on the turn and river and with a big smile Frank scoops the pot.
Cue a good bitch and a moan about Shane’s rather lovely hand getting torched and we should be able to move on. But no, the crying seemed to go on forever, to listen to Shane, we had just witnessed one of the greatest atrocities of our time. I actually started to feel sorry for Frank, Shane couldn’t seem to get past having been called by such a weak shitty hand. But he really needs to look at things as the rest of the world sees it.
Shane “Blind Bet” Keary had jammed his chip in the middle while holding 4 cards, something that happens with the regularity of a Swiss time piece, what the fuck is Frank suppose to having hit any part of the flop. The odds that Shane actually has a big hand is so low that it simply has to be ignored.
This is a lesson we all need to learn, we all need to be more self-aware, to be conscious of how our opponents see us and our style of play. And if your go to move is to aggressive play hands blind, you’re going to get called, ya fecking jackass.