This week, I fell foul of the Red Herring River Card. You'll see I have added special capital letters, to coin it as a poker term: a handy mnemonic for future use.
The Grosvenor UK Poker Tour is in London (next month: Manchester) and the main £1,500 event begins today. My Red Herring swam forth in a side event, the £300 holdem. With blinds at 50/100, I limped under the gun with aces. I was immediately punished for this old-school strategy: for the first time in two hours, nobody raised. Four of us saw a flop of Qd Jd 3s. I bet 450 and got one caller. Turn card: 6c. I bet the pot, 1,300. He called. River: Ad
Of course, I knew this brought a flush and a straight. But it's not easy to make three aces. I was now beating QJ or a nasty little 33; highly possible limping hands. So I bet my remaining 1,800 into the pot of 3,900.
Stupid, stupid. I'm not saying it would have been possible to fold if my opponent moved in, but I should certainly check. If he checks behind, I can be grateful to win the pot. If he bets, I can try to work out whether he's hit, or if he's bluffing with 9 10 or making an ill-advised value bet with two pair. In the event, he'd always have been hard to read, because he'd flat-called pre-flop and two streets with 8d 5d. But I never gave myself the chance. And if the river had been a small diamond, I suspect I would have done. Beware the Red Herring: it is fishy.
