"Check me ouuuuut. No, seriously, check me out!"
-Strong Bad

Don't worry, the quote is a one-time gimmick meant to draw attention to the new design of my blog. I finally got comments added (thanks to a serendipitous site upgrade by Blogger).

I've promised some hand histories, so here we go. This happened yesterday, but it's an instant classic.

I'm in the small blind at a $0.01/$0.02 table with only four other players. I was planning on posting this blind, seeing the next three hands for free, then moving to a full table. I look down and see Q4s and think, "What the heck. I'll ante the penny and see what happens." It's SOOTED, anyway.

Imagine my surpise when the flop is 444! According to my brother, flopping quads with unpaired hole cards is 19,000 to 1. Needless to say, this was the first time it had ever happened to me.

Two players had limped, so there were 4 of us in the pot staring down at 444. I was under the gun, and I obviously checked. The only way I could lose this hand is if someone else had a pocket pair and hit runner cards on the turn and river. I'm not sure what the odds of that are, but I'm guessing they're even worse than 19,000 to 1. A lot of casinos offer "bad beat jackpots" for exactly that sort of scenario. Shoot, for the small stakes we were playing, I would welcome a bad beat like that. It would make for a better story!

In any case, everyone checks, and I start to realize that I'm probably not going to get paid off even a little bit for this miracle flop. I mean, who would bet with three 4s on board? Slowplay or not, I'd be lucky to pick up $0.10. When a Q came out on the turn, I laughed a little bit. Just my luck to catch another pair in addition to my quads. In some alternate gambling universe, I had just hit the coveted QUAD-PAIR! The Q also made me even more certain that nobody would bet into me, since there were only two other Qs out there.

I check, the next two players check, and then, remarkably, the button bets $0.12! The other two players folded, but I did one of my patented "think-calls," where I run the timer down a bit before calling.

The river was Td, and I figured I'd come out betting a small amount rather than risk a check from the button. So I toss $0.10 out there and the button re-raises me to $0.30! Not getting greedy yet, I simply re-raised him to $0.50. When he re-re-raised me to $1, I went all-in. Surprise, surprise, he called.

Seeing my quads, the other guy (girl?) mucked, but thanks to Poker Tracker I know that he (she?) had QJo, and had hit 4s full of Qs on the turn. I actually apologized to this player after taking his (her?) stack, but it's probably a blessing in disguise. Anyone silly enough to call re-raises with trips on board probably shouldn't be playing the game of poker.

By the way, the parenthetical notes are there because I couldn't tell if this player was a man or woman. (S)he had a somewhat androgynous name and picture.

That's all for now. Hey, be sure to check out my new comment functionality. Just click where it says "0 comments" and add your thoughts.

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