Every home game player has been fooled at least once, and even the professionals know to be very wary indeed. When you’re squeezing poker hands, and especially if you’re card dead, every four can look a lot like an ace.
It is a fate George Danzer experienced a lot this afternoon during his brief stay on Day 4 (how appropriate) of EPT Prague. Returning to a stack of 15 big blinds, Danzer knew he needed to find a decent-ish hand behind which to get his chips in, but said that every time he looked down, what he thought was an ace was a four.
“It’s happened eight times in a row,” he said. “Every hand has had a four in it.”
At the time of this lament, Danzer had precisely six chips left in front of him: four gold chips, worth 25,000 apiece, and two blues, worth 5,000 each. That 110,000 was 11 big blinds and Danzer was running out of patience in this war of attrition.
“Soon you might find two fours in the same hand,” I said, by way of encouragement. Danzer seemed brightened by the prospect, suggesting that that would be enough.
Off he went back to his seat for his next hand. The dealer flung the cards around the table and action was folded to Danzer in the cut off. He paused for the slightest moment, then snatched up his pile of chips (which had now actually grown into a nine-chip pile, thanks to a change up to pay the 1,000 ante) and plonked them over the line. Players on the button and small blind folded, but Tamer Kamel, in the big blind, did not pause very long before looking Danzer up.
The Team PokerStars Pro then could not conceal a grin. He lifted up his two cards and pointed their faces clearly in my direction. There was no mistaking, Danzer had 4♦ 4â™ . “These kind of things only happen to George,” my colleague Stephen Bartley said.
Kamel had A♠Q♦ and Danzer was quite happy with the flip, even if it was a little creepy for everyone that his hand had been predicted before it appeared.
The flop wasn’t great for those fours, however. It came K♣ 7â™ Q♥ . The turn was 3â™ and the river 10♣ and despite having blighted him for the entire day, Danzer couldn’t see just one more four to keep him in the tournament.
“It’s not a bad hand with 11 big blinds, folded to you in the cut off,” Danzer said moments later, refusing to be drawn into results-oriented thinking. He was standing in the queue beside the cash-out desk, where he was due to collect his €16,970 for finishing 53rd.
Soon after, he turned to Twitter to offer wry commentary on his day. “Busto,” he said. “Could not win a single coin flip today.” (The sub-text here is that he only played one.)
Danzer said he hasn’t yet decided whether to play the High Roller event, which has now kicked off. He seemed a little anguished at the prospect of sitting down again, even though it is likely to be an enormous event.
Whether or not he plays, and whether or not he cashes if he does, 2014 has been a fine year for World Series Player of the Year George Danzer. Here’s to 2015.
Full coverage of the main event is on the main event page. Action from the high roller is on the High Roller page.
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