It's because when you play a small to mid-size pocket pair in NLHE, you're hoping to flop a set. You're not really going about it hopefully to call someone down to the end, and hope your pocket fours are good. You want it to be multi-way so the pot will be larger, and you'll get action if your hit your set.

Home Game- A guy with the pro-poker player attitude and regular casino gambler says "I never lose with pocket 99, Never ill call any all in on any street", and he does, that same guy one time has pocket 1010 and flops top set on a 1072 rainbow board, another guy tries to bluff him with J7 for a huge pot and he flips over his cards and starts acting like an idiot saying i think im gonna fold, he could have xx (no preflop raise and the shover was raising alot) and finally calls after some time and the other guy catches runner runner Jacks full and beats him, he says: i knew i should fold.Another guy at a slot machine says to a friend of mine seating at his side, "today we are leaving on a jet or on foot" and my friend go on and loses all his money and leaves and the other guy apparently goes broke also, and at the exit he saw the other guy getting in a limo guarded by bodyguards and with some girls, and my friend had nothing,
I used to play at a home game that at the middle of the hands when some "big decision came" they started asking what do you have (whoever wasnt involved to the ones involved in the hand) and started passin the hole cards a ll over.

Local tourny, my friend has Ax on a 2 2 2 board. Someone bets, a call, my friend calls. Turn is a 2. All the money goes in and my friend calls obv, expecting a chop. One guy tables 9 9 and the other Q Q. My friend amusedly goes to collect the pot, before the table erupts. It's a split pot, they all claim, everyone has quads. My friend calls the host over, and explains he has the Ace kicker. Host thinks and thinks whilst everyone is arguing and claiming Q Q is the best hand, others say all three chop, not one seems to understand the A kicker. Eventually the host says all three split it. Reason? 'It's not fair that A high should win.' Not as funny as some of the stories so far but tilting nonetheless!

"I have to call I am getting value" - this all the time or "I cant fold for $10 more I have to call"

I was playing $1/2 NLHE in MP in a 3 way pot were I am second to act after EP and turn the nut straight and go all in, the guy to my left thinks for ages and turns to EP seat and says

"why do you have to be in the hand I know I got this guy beat"

he then turns to me and says

"Your lucky he has to act after me"

He folds, EP folds.

Guy to my left says "I wasnt worried about you (Hero), dam it I should of called"
Hero says "what did you have"
Guy to my left says "Bottom pair 5 kicker"

I see a guy 4 bet fold pre to an all in getting a huge price. Since I'm leaving I say to him "How can you fold? You were getting like 5-1 to call" He says "What do you mean 5-1, there was only two of us in the pot"

I was in a home game last week and one of the players proudly announced that he folded AA preflop in a tournament because 3 other players were all in before the flop.

When I asked him why he did this he said " I dont have the time to explain it right now, but it was the correct play".

My three favorites (among many).

1. Guy wins a massive pot with 86o. Action PF was straddle, I 3! AKs, LAG reraises, this guy CC 4. Flop is something like K82 and the turn is a 6. After the hand, he comments that he only plays "middle cards" when it is raised and reraised PF. That way, it is clear that everyone else has big cards and his hand will be good if he hits. This was 8/16 FWIW.

2. Heated argument erupts from a guy who claims Js4s is better than KsQs on a three spade, J high board. Come to find out that he had learned poker from his nephew, who had told him that a "flush pair" is better than a regular flush. This was also 8/16.

3. Old timer #1 sucks out on old timer #2 by making trip 2s with 23o. Old timer #2 berates him. OT #1 contends that it is more common for 2s and 3s to come on the river, which is why he stayed. OT #2 of course goes nuts. I actually see some grain of logic in this and attempt to intervene. Not all hands go to SD and those that do are more likely to have big cards in hands. He dismisses this and references something about the "luck" of 2s and 3s. I shut up.

-HF

Easy solution. Ask the QQ which 5 cards he would like to play.

Please no more derailing the thread with this conversation. It is being moved to a "Pot Odds" thread in another forum.

Any more posts on the subject will be removed.

LOL.

There is a situation where this applies, but I've never heard of it happening. Let's say you are down to 4 players, you have 2BB and the other 3 have, let's say, 205BBs. You are the BB, and get AA. All 3 players move all in. You should fold. Your chances of winning a 4-person all-in are not worth an almost guaranteed shot at 2nd place.

But that's just a silly situation.

Most commonly heard around my charity room: Multiple limps, SB or BB raises, folds around to late position who sighs and states "Just you and me? I fold." And reminds everyone that if there were more people in the pot, it would have been worth playing.

One hand in particular: $1/2 NL. Young villain and competent hero in pot. Board reads A A 6. Pretty obviously by flop action that both have an Ace. Turn is blank coupled by large bet from hero and call. River is a 6. Table relaxes as we all fully expect a chop. Hero fires medium sized bet at pot, obviously expected a call/chop. Villain tanks. Eyebrows are raised. Finally, villain mucks. Hero looks surprised and rakes in pot. I comment to villain that I thought for sure he had an Ace, and others around me agree. Villain looks at me and states "I did, I just thought he had a better kicker than me."

When kindly informed that full houses do not require a kicker, villain looks confused.

I immediately get up from the table and add $100 to my stack.

wish every player i went up against was this bad. once this happened with me but it the board read A.A.10.10.2. i bet, other guy raises, im all-in he calls expecting a chop, i turn over pocket tens and pick up a very big pot. nice

My previous post got moved to calculating pot odds (I blame Stevie G). Here it is again, maybe not right for this thread but the story is too good to pass up.

At a local Indian Casino a new player sits down at a 1/2 NL table (max $300 buy in) and buys in for $100. Multi-way pot and the new player is involved right away. Flop is 8 9 K rainbow and regular leads out for $15, dealer turns to new player and says $15 to call sir, new player calls. Turn is a 6, regular fires out $35, dealer turns to new player and says $35 to call sir, new player calls. River is a 4, regular debates for a bit and decides to bet $50 or so and put the new player all-in, dealer turns to new player and says all-in to call sir, new player calls. The regular sheepishly turns over J10o for the busted straight draw, new player flips over 23o. Jack high scoops. Befuddled the dealer asks the new player why he didn't fold, the new player flips out on the dealer and yells out "YOU DIDN'T TELL ME I COULD FOLD!". When the dealer kept asking him to put money in the pot he didn't know he had an option to fold out. I almost felt sorry for him, almost ..

I've LOLed through this entire thread.

I remember one time an old man hit a 3-outer on the river against this guy who sucked. The guy who sucked started to bitch and moan about how badly the old guy played the hand. So the old guy said in an abrasive, threatening tone "I won the pot. You don't criticize my play and I won't criticize yours."

Edit: Not really a "thinking" part in the story, but still kinda funny justification. "I won the pot so stfu" is basically what the old man said to justify his horrible play.

Sry it took so long to reply:

I was playing in a 100NL game in SoCal and it was about 5 regs and 3 guys I never played with. They were all pretty bad players, but this really solidified my reasoning for it.

A hand begins where I'm in EP I think and fold with something like 6 limpers to the flop. Flop comes K65 two spades. BB leads out for 25 into pot of 13 and gets raised all in by BTN who has him covered. Pot is now 163 as BB has ~100 behind. BB tanks for literally 2min and then mucks face up 78 spades. He had probably 15 outs twice and says "I wasn't getting the right odds to call that".

I'm slightly tilted, but ask, "But if you have 15 outs then you're mathematically ahead and odds wouldn't matter, right?" And he explained how I just didn't get it and you ALWAYS need pot odds when on a draw. I was slightly more tilted.
Another man who wasn't involved then chimes in with the money line: "You know it's impossible to have more than 16 outs in Hold'em". Half the table nods and a couple say "oh yea, I heard that. It's good to know odds".
So I proceed to start tryin to get takers on a prop bet that I can point out a situation where you can have 21 outs on a flop and 25 on the turn and nobody would bite. I shrug and tell him 22 vs JTss on a 985ssx board gives you 21 outs to beat the ducks.
A 4th man now chimes in. "No, you're double counting the straight and over cards. It's more like 14 outs now". This tilted me a lot. I tried to explain by counting each card one by one but they kept giving me a blank stare like I was speaking Mandarin.

During this whole exchange I was getting more and more tilted, and within about a 10 hand span I donk off 4 buy ins, not really paying attn. to the play just tryin to prove my point. In retrospect it could have been a tablewide conspiracy to tilt and then busto me 4 times over in which case bravo sirs, you've won this round.