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Bad Beat

How to play a pair of fours...badly

How to play a small pocket pair...if you want to feel suicidal

by Bad Beat PokerJolt January, 24th 2011
Overall: 4
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Want to know how to play a small pocket pair...me too!

Above: Want to know how to play a small pocket pair...me too!

Pocket fours will give me poker nightmares for the rest of my life

Here lies the Bad Beat Blogger. He folded his Pocket fours.

Seriously, stick that on my tombstone.

I can't talk about this hand for too long, as I'll get upset.

But my mother told me to share. So here goes...

The other night, playing a five-handed €0.10/0.20 cash game on PokerTime, I looked down to find the buggers staring straight back at me.

I'd only just sat down. and had passed up my first three trash hands. I was determined to be disciplined. To grind.

I was immediately to the right of the button.

UTG raises €0.60. A bog standard move at this level. I pause. I think.

In a nine-handed game I'd have pretty good position here. But we're only five. It's on me, already.

Three villains are still to act. And one has already raised. Tricky.

With a low standard raise like this, the blinds are priced in to call. And the button, at this level, will call with anything.

And I've only just sat down.

I remind myself it's a low pair, that's all. Worth a limp in position and not much else. And I have a hunch this could get expensive.

I fold.

The button re-raises up to €2. Quite a move at this level.

I congratulate myself on a well-disciplined lay down. Everyone else will fold.

They don't. They all call. All of them.

And down comes the flop. 4,4,5♣.

Buggery fucking bollocks.

Everyone's terrified now that somebody's flopped a set and it suddenly gets conservative.

The flop is checked, as is the turn, k♣, which freaks out everyone even more and a small river bet from the big blind takes the pot.

At best he has kings. He probably doesn't even have that. He mucks, naturally.

His prize? A whopping €10. in a €0.10/0.20 game. With nothing.

And me? I've folded an absolute monster.

Sick.

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Bad Beat

Bad Beat Why. Is. Life. So. Fu*&ing. Unfair? Unlike the other two idiots blogging on this site I'm a realist. And I really am losing a bloody fortune. So forget the sex-obsessed freak and that other hopeless dreamer and stick with me. It ain't pretty. I bet on sports and lose. And I play poker and lose. Again. And again.
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