The Story Behind The Quad Aces

The Story Behind The Quad Aces

On the header you will have undoubtedly noticed four aces. Rather than just having any old poker motif at the top, there is a very interesting story behind this hand. The very first game of No Limit Hold’em that professional poker player Carl “The Dean” Sampson played online involved this very hand.

“The Dean” was and is a Limit Hold’em specialist and he has written an excellent advanced book on this wonderfully intricate from of poker entitled “Secrets of Professional Limit Hold’em: Learn How The Pro’s Think”. But towards the end of 2004, Carl decided to branch out into playing No Limit Hold’em online. Carl was only twenty minutes into his very first session when the following hand cropped up and “The Dean” will talk you through what happened in his own unique way.

“The game was $10-$20 NL and I had been in the game for about twenty minutes or so. I had bought in for the maximum $2000 in what was a five handed game. I had been by far the most aggressive player at the table and had run my stack up to about $2700 when the following hand came up.

I was dealt an A-4 on the button and it was folded around to me and I raised to $60. Me and the player in the big blind had been the two most active players on the table by far. I had forced the big blind to lay down several times before and I just kind of got the feeling that they were fixing to front me very soon and extract revenge.

The little blind folded and the big blind called the extra $40. The flop came A-A-A and now I was trying to figure how to get the maximum pay off from the hand. They checked and I quickly fired $100 into the $130 pot, I knew that it was unlikely that they would take me for an ace after my previous play and a check by me could arouse suspicion.

They called the $100 and the turn card brought a 3 and the big blind checked again. I want them to think that I may be thinking that they could be trapping me with the case ace and I paused for a few moments and then checked it back. They had more money on the table than me, about a grand or so more.

The river card brought an offsuit queen to make A-A-A-3-Q and the big blind bet $200 into the $330 pot. If they have no hand then even if I just raise the minimum they will likely fold as they are not going to get too deeply involved with another big stack without at least a big full house. Here was my chance to double through them if they have filled up with a queen and they would be unlikely to lay it down.

I paused and raised all in and their call was instant. I never got to see their hand but it almost certainly involved a queen based on the speed of their call. This was an absolutely breathtaking start to my online No Limit career and I have never looked back since”

So there you have it, the story behind the four aces. Getting four aces was incredibly fortunate but extracting the opponents entire stack wasn’t.