I Should Have Laid Down My Full House

After opening up Feb. with a nice winning streak, the middle of the month had cooled considerably for me. It seems like I have played a high concentration of card dead hours lately and maybe that's partly because these sessions have sandwiched a bout of the flu. After being out of action for about a week, I got back to it at The Venetian the other day only to hit the cold deck once more. In truth though, I could have laid down my queens full of fives and saved $250 in that hand and here is why.

I was playing a little 1-2 NL. The table was pretty tight, but we did have on catalyst who raised most hands. I had picked up a few pots and and my stack was at about $450. I would look down at pocket Q's in the small blind. A couple of players would limp into the pot and the player in the cutoff would raise to $20. I instantly knew that I was up against a big hand. I was thinking Aces or Kings, but I also thought, let me see the flop. (LA Tony has seen me lay down the big pairs on the flop when I think they are no good). So, I call and another player who is perpetually short stacked and an apocalypticly bad player also called.

The flop came K-Q-5. My initial reaction is oh great, I flopped my set, let the fireworks begin. I checked and still had this ominous feeling about the hand. The donk would bet out and the initial raiser who was older than old man river (and just as tight) called. I flat called and the turn brought another 5. Now I have a Q's full and there is only one hand that can beat me.

I check and the donk bets. The old man goes all in for another $250 or so. I have everyone covered. I knew I was calling and I felt I might be losing. I had put old man river on Aces or Kings preflop, so I was only really 50-50 to win the hand based on my initial read. If I would have taken more time to make my decision, I think I might have been able to fold for this simple reason: The player who actual did push all-in in this spot would not likely have done so with just pocket Aces. Therefore, he had to have the kings. The deductive reasoning was so clear and so obvious. I rushed my decision, because I was blinded by the strength of my hand.

Pretty much every poker player (including myself) will tell you that my hand was a cooler and the only thing that a player can do in my spot is lose his chips. I knew in my gut though that my hand was no good and I should have let it go and saved the $250. If any other player at the table had bet the exact same way, I would have called, lost and felt fine about it. However, this player was the tightest at the table and I had played with him for long enough to have been able to see that he could only have had the nuts in that spot.