POKER HAND #7

MORE ERIK SEIDEL: Our first non-hold 'em hand over here at PHOTD. Here's Phill Hellmuth in Card Player in the year 2002:

Anyway, on day two of Bellagio's pot-limit Omaha event, with eight players left in the tournament and the blinds high, the following hand came up between Jim McManus and Erik Seidel. Erik remembers calling a small raise before the flop with Q-Q-X-X from one of the blinds. The flop came down Kh Qh 4s, and Erik checked. Jim bet, and Erik called. The next card off was the 5s, and Erik checked, Jim bet, and Erik just called.

The last card was the 4, for a board of Kh Qh 4s 5d 4h, and Erik bet out with his queens full of fours. Jim then moved Erik all in. When Erik bet on the end, he planned to fold if Jim raised him his remaining chips. Now, staring at an $11,000 call all in, with a ton of chips already in the pot, Erik went into the think tank. He was initially convinced that Jim could only have kings full of fours. Then, he asked himself, "Could Jim really have raised me all in with fours full, or merely a flush?"

Although Erik was convinced that Jim had the best hand, he just didn't have enough chips to lay down his queens full. So, he called the raise and Jim said, "I have the nuts." Seidel was standing, ready to exit stage left, but for the mere formality of Jim showing him his four fours or kings full of fours. When Jim flipped up the Ah 6h-X-X, for merely the nut flush, Erik thought, "Holy cow, I actually won this pot." You see, Jim didn't notice that the 4 had paired the board, and thus thought he had the nuts with his ace-high flush.

What a swing; Erik was already resigned to an eighth-place finish, and all of a sudden he was not only still alive, but was the chip leader, as well. Erik now says, "The funny thing about it is that Jim did think he had the nuts, and my read was right! Also, I would like to credit the U.S. Army, because they had captured Saddam Hussein only hours before, and that had left Jim in such a state of euphoria that he wasn't paying close attention to the hand." (Jim himself wrote, in a recent Details magazine article, that the "Saddam capture" distracted his play in this hand.)