Furst Versus Worst

Date: 2006.11.27 | Category: Hand Of The Week | By: Phil Hellmuth   

In the $1,500 buy-in pot limit Hold ’em tournament at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) this year, more than 1,100 players began the day looking for a coveted gold bracelet, and more than $340,000 for first place. Two days later, nine players sat down at the final table, including top pros John Juanda and Can Hua, high limit player Rick Chase, and “Tilt Boy” Rafe Furst. Juanda was eliminated when his Q-Q lost all-in before the flop versus Hua’s A-K.

With the blinds at $10,000-$20,000, Furst looked down at A-A on the button. He decided to just call the $20,000 bet in order to induce some action. In the old days, a common poker maxim was this: if you slow play your big pair and lose a big pot, then you get what you deserve. This rule seemed set in stone when I first came around the scene in the late 1980s, and for good reason. The top players felt that by slow playing big pocket pairs you were giving your opponents “free cards,” which they then used to bust you. The rule was so prevalent back then that if I ever lost a huge pot slow playing my big pocket pair everyone would say, “You slow played K-K? Of course you got what you deserved.” There was no further discussion needed! Never mind the fact that I was a huge favorite with one card to come when the money went in, or that there may be a good reason why I slow played my hand, or that I actually induced the action that I was hoping for; it was simply “Do not slow play big pairs.” That was then and this is now. In my books, DVDs, and online courses, I talk about why slow playing big pairs can be a great strategy sometimes.