74 alert!

For those who don't know my favorite hand is 74 (preferably suited). You're probably thinking WTF mate? The reason I've chosen this hand is a) it's unique and it'll be very rare anyone else chooses this as their favorite, b) it's not much different than other suited connectors/gappers like 56, 78, 89 which others will profess to be their favorite, and c) I've won a few memorable pots with it that I'll never forget.

The original pot was in the Lone Star Poker League's team tournament. This tournament was structured to where you had a team of four players that each played their own one table sit n go essentially. Where you finished determined the amount of points you earned for that round and then you combine all your teammates scores for your total. At the end of each round x amount of teams are eliminated if they don't earn enough points. Our team was called Bustanut (the nuts=an unbeatable hand) and it was me, Travis, Pat and Bruce.

We did VERY well and made it to the 2nd to last round, just barely missing out on the final. I ran extremely well that day with a 1st, 1st and two 2nds. Then in the 5th round it seemed I was going card dead...

So I pick up 74 of hearts in early position (under the gun to be exact). I raise 2.5 times the blind and I get called by Tony from the blinds. Tony is one of those unforgettable poker characters. He's a tall skinny black guy and looks like he would be in Snoop Dogg videos. He's always dressed very flashy ghetto, and he also had a "thing" for my one follower Lindsey (see the right sidebar). :) I won't get into that, though hehe.

Tony's a very loose player. If he has chips he will call with just about any mediocre piece of the board and he LOVES to check in the dark (before the cards come out). He was doing it all day. I took full advantage of this by checking behind him when the board came with two hearts. Lo and behold, I make my flush on the turn and he's checked in the dark again. At this point there are 2 or 3 face cards up there, straight possiblities, etc. Rather than slowplay I bet my flush knowing he'll call with a ton of hands I beat - this concept is called getting value or if you're cool with slang, taking him to valuetown.

The river makes a 4 card straight on the board. He checks again. I don't remember what the chips were but basically I knew that he could very well have a straight and since he was the big stack and wouldn't bust, he wasn't folding if he had it. So I pushed all in, he called and I showed the 74! Looking back I wish I'd have shouted out to whole room "I just doubled up with SEVEN FUCKING FOUR EVERYONE!" Ahh hindsight.

All my poker buds know my favorite hand and lately I've been seeing it pop up in big live tournament hand histories online, and on TV in some cases. There was a WSOP episode recently where Patrick Antonius had a full house with 74. And now on lunch I'm reading a hand from the latest WPT tournament on the Poker Road Forums and famous online player Jimmy "Gobboboy" Fricke talks about another player, Marc Karam, making a move with 74:

"Another friend of mine went out on day 2 (?) when he 3bet (reraised) Marc's open in middle position with AK and Marc immediately moved in with 74s, and this spot looks MUCH better to be making a play than that one."

The above link is a great poker forum where recognized pros can post hands and get critques only by other red pros. This helps keep the discussion relevant and clutter free. It's great and I can already tell it's going to be a HUGE hit with all the online players. Check it out if you're have the itch to be a poker n3rd like me.

2 posts in one day I'm making up for lost time! I should be blogging on my church's site. Oh well, sorry God. You understand. :)