Thursday, 28th March 2024 09:27
Home / Uncategorized / ANZPT Auckland Day 1c: Huang runs the perfect bluff

Poker players are a superstitious lot, and when you think about it, you can understand why.

At the table, a poker player can only do so much. They can use their skill, knowledge and experience to get all their chips in the middle and be a huge favourite to win the pot, but ultimately their fate lay with the fall of the cards. The shuffle of the deck. The wrath of the poker Gods.

Even though a player’s fate is already sealed when the cards are randomised and flung around the table, they can’t help themselves to try and influence their own vulnerable destiny.

When the chips are all in, players have funny ways of handling the sweat. A player might stand from the table, they might look away from the board or they might even press their hands together in the seemingly appropriate motion of prayer. They might rub their lucky card protector, they might embrace their loved one on the rail or they might call for their opponent’s outs in a feeble attempt to throw fate off its game.

Or they might follow the lead of Team PokerStars Pro Bryan Huang.

Huang has had an up and down day so far. He built up a stack before being severely dented when his pocket queens lost a huge coin flip against ace-king. Moments later Huang was all in with A♥ 10â™  against an opponent’s Qâ™  J♦ .

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Before the cards had landed on the felt, Huang was up out of his chair. He put on his jacket and he grabbed his promotional player bag. Huang was one foot towards the rail. Huang was showing the world his acceptance for his apparent certain demise – let’s call it running a perfect bluff against the poker Gods.

It’s a perfect bluff because it’s a total freeroll. Huang had nothing to lose. If he got it wrong, he’s back in the tournament. Great! If he got it right, then he’s already got his jacket on and is half way to the exit. Basically, you can never look bad. It’s genius!

This time around the bluff seemed to work as the board bricked out. Huang took his jacket off and was back in the game with close to starting stack. Let’s just hope he’s not all in too many more times, otherwise he’s going to get sick of that jacket.

Heath “TassieDevil” Chick is a Freelance Contributor for the PokerStars Blog.

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