Poker Fold Quads
Kyle Bowker won his first WSOP bracelet last week, but everyone was talking about him today because of what he threw in the muck.
Bowker folded quad sevens on the river of a K♠ 9♠ 7 x 7x T♠ board.
In other words, the exact implied odds of Quads made with a pocket pair depends on the board structure. Basic Strategy Advice. Quads are basically the nuts. Never fold Quads when 100bb deep (provided we use at least one of our hole cards in formulating the four of a kind). Folding quads face up at the WSOP seems to be a quadrennial event like the World Cup, except possibly more shocking. Maybe someone will fold quad 6s face up in 2020. Hopefully that time someone will show the straight flush so the rest of the world can stop speculating. I have hit quads over 350 times (yes there are players who hit quads hundreds of times throughout the years) and not even I would fold quads ever. I play pocket pairs too many times.
Bowker relayed the hand to WSOP.com and after they reported it, it was immediately met with skepticism.
He had to be messing with the live reporters. Right? Who in their right minds would fold quads?
Apparently, Bowker.
Is this a real @wsop main event hand? pic.twitter.com/BSPXJNGoaW
— Allen Kessler (@AllenKessler) July 13, 2016Quads Folded, Confirmed
Tim Reilly and other players at the table confirmed that Bowker folded the hand. Reilly also said there were only two bets on the river. The last bet ended in a clock call.
When the minute ticked down Bowker turned over two sevens and the table went wild. The only hand that could beat him was precisely Q♠ T♠.
While his opponent didn’t show, he said he had it. Reilly believed him, too, but we’ll never know for sure.
Some people reacted on Twitter saying they’d go broke anytime with quads. Over the long term that’s definitely the winning strategy, but it isn’t necessarily always right.
This is the Main Event. There’s $8 million up for grabs and there’s no bad beat jackpot. When you’re done, you’re done.
Not the First Time Quads Hit the Muck at WSOP
This isn’t the first high-profile quads to hit the muck at the WSOP. Back in 2012, during the inaugural Big One for One Drop, Mikhail Smirnov folded quad eights on the river of a J♠ 8♣ 7♠ 8♠ K♠ board.
Hitting quads is unlikely enough as it is. Losing with quads will get you a jackpot in lots of card rooms.
Folding quads face up at the WSOP seems to be a quadrennial event like the World Cup, except possibly more shocking.
Maybe someone will fold quad 6s face up in 2020.
Hopefully that time someone will show the straight flush so the rest of the world can stop speculating.
But that might ruin part of what makes poker so great: the mystery of incomplete information.
Recent bracelet winner Kyle Bowker was playing the World Series of Poker main event on Wednesday and found himself involved in a pot where he had turned quads and was betting for value on the river. Bowker’s opponent then moved all in.
Bowker was ready to insta-call, but he paused and realized that exactly one straight flush combination was a likely holding for his opponent. The board read K 9 7x 7x J.
According to Bowker, he opened with pocket sevens from early position and everything that happened next made a straight flush a very real possibility.
“The next player flatted; the kid who I ended up folding to flatted,” Bowker told Card Player. “The big blind flatted. The flop came K 9 7. I bet 5,000. Fold. Kid in the middle calls. The big blind folds. The turn was another seven.”
Bowker decided not to slow-play his quads. He bet 11,000. The bet was called.
The dealer burned and put the J on the felt.
“I bet 40,000,” Bowker said, “which was pot because I felt like he had the nut flush draw and got there on the river. And then he moved all in for 98,000 in total.”
Despite getting a great price on the call, which wasn’t even for his tournament life, Bowker went into the tank. Every summer there are waves of criticism about tanking in tournaments, but sometimes thinking about a hand for what feels like an eternity to other players is justified.
“I was just going to put the money in, but I sat back and thought about it,” Bowker said. “I was quite sure he liked the river card, and he was a three-bettor, so he would have three-bet me preflop if he had kings and he probably would have three-bet me preflop if he had jacks. So, like nines was one of the hands, but I was very sure he wasn’t made on the flop or the turn and he liked the river card. So now it’s pocket jacks or Q 10, and I just really felt like he would have either three-bet preflop with jacks or not have gotten to the river with jacks. There was a zero-percent chance he was bluffing, so I thought it was really likely that it was the Q-10 of spades.”
Asked about the seven minutes he spent in the tank, Bowker said it was “way the most time I’ve ever taken for a poker hand.” The clock ended up being called on him.
“While I was thinking about it I was thinking that I was crazy, like ‘What am I doing in the tank for seven minutes with quads,’ but when it can only be a few hands: kings, jacks, nines, Q 10, and I can rule out some of those hands almost for sure, it just became a fold in my head.”
Bowker exposed the sevens when folding, and his opponent didn’t show. The tabled responded in utter disbelief, according to Bowker. “They didn’t think it was real.”
Poker Fold Quads Exercises
“He told me later that he had it,” Bowker said. “But he said he would have also shoved nines full on the river. But you never know for sure. He could have been lying to me.”
Bowker agreed with the notion that if his opponent didn’t have the straight flush he likely would have tabled a hand that inexplicably bluffed quads.
Poker Fold Quads Bike
“I felt like when I showed my hand I could see on his face that he was disgusted,” Bowker said. “I felt really confident that I was making the right fold anyway, and that just kind of confirmed it more.”
When asked about the price he was getting on making the call, Bowker said that in a cash game or a tournament that’s not the WSOP main event he likely would have found a call.
“I was getting an amazing price. You have to be over 95-percent sure to make the fold. But I was. I am playing with more confidence than normal because I just won [a bracelet]. I wouldn’t call myself a big hero folder in general, and I probably wouldn’t have made the fold in any other tournament or cash game, even if I thought he had the Q 10. I would be like, ’If you have the Q 10 you got me. In this tournament, and being that sure, I thought I could make the fold.”
Bowker ended up surviving to day 3 of the tournament with 132,200 in chips, which was slightly below average with more than 2,000 players remaining.
Bowker’s hand is similar to the time Russian poker player Mikhail Smirnov folded quad eights in the 2012 $1 million buy-in at the WSOP. Smirnov also put his opponent on a straight flush in spades, and to this day it appears to have been the correct lay down.