It’s often easy to sit back and watch how a poker hand plays out then realize what has happened after the players’ cards are shown. If you’re watching TV, you don’t have to wait till the end because they show you everybody’s hole cards from beginning to the end. But when it’s you at the table, you don’t have the advantage of seeing what everyone else has and that’s why being able to analyze a card from pre-flop play to the showdown is such an important skill. Take this scenario for example:
Eight players are at a table in the middle stages of an online poker tournament. The blinds in the tourney are sitting at 100-200 and the shortest stack at the table is 9,000 chips. The cards are dealt and the betting action has just started. Surprisingly, the first player to act (who has a stack of 18,000 chips) raises the big blind.
Everyone folds to the shortest stacked player (9,000) in middle position who raises the early bettor. This leaves everyone past this middle player without a premium hand in a must-fold position. After all, the early bettor obviously has a great hand to call out of position like this and the middle person raised them so their hand has to be at least decent. So as expected, everyone folds to the early bettor.
Now down to this person and the one in middle position, the early bettor re-raises leaving the action to the middle position person who calls. But the actions of the earliest player have to make one assume that they have an A-A, K-K, Q-Q, J-J, or A-K hand. After all, this is the middle stage of the tourney and most people don’t make it here by making three foolish bets out of position. The middle person must have an equally good hand, or at least something in the range of an A-Q or 10-10 range which would be a stretch to bet out on.
The flop comes up
and the first player to act simply checks. This leaves the middle person to wonder whether they are slow-playing, missed the flop, or are down to a drawing hand. The middle person thinks it is being slow-played and a possible set of A’s has been hit so they check.
The turn is
and so the board is As, 10s, 4d, Jh.
The first player now bets out again meaning that the slow-play theory could be true and so the middle person just calls leaving the river to be shown.
The river comes up as a harmless leaving the board at As, 10s, 4d, Jh, 2c.
The first player to act checks which is possibly setting up a check-raise or they really don’t have the nuts. The middle player ditches the theory that they are slow-playing and goes all-in. The first player, thinking the middle one has a pair, or set of aces simply folds.
In this situation neither player will have to show their cards but, for the sake of the scenario, let’s reveal them anyways. The first player actually had K-K which was a good hand to be aggressive with early but faded as the board was revealed. The first position player was right to fold to the all-in call as the middle player held two J’s as hole cards and hit a set on the turn.