Nick is a cash game player, content creator and part of 888poker’s Stream Team. Each week he shares his thoughts and experiences as a player dedicated to the daily grind. This week, as he flies home across the Atlantic, he reflects on some of the craziest poker situations he's ever been put in - all thanks to the WSOP Main Event…
I write this on the flight home from Las Vegas, after participating in my third WSOP Main Event. I've already told the tale of my miraculous run to a min-cash in the 2022 Main Event (see part one and part two), and spoke of how I planned to use those experiences to guide me to a repeat success this time around.
For my next two articles, I want to talk about two of the most intense moments, not just in this year's showpiece event, but in my entire poker career. It's fair to say I can define them as such largely due to the prestige and pressure of this event, but nonetheless they are two of the most insane spots I've ever been in throughout my time playing the game.
Folding…. kings?!?
Our first hand is on level three of day 1. After being all-in in the first level of the event following a truly incredible turn of events early on, I was looking for a slightly calmer rest of the day. As it was, I was presented with the chance to do something most poker players can count on one hand they've done in their career, if that: fold Kings preflop.
Sitting on around the starting stack of 60,000 chips at the 300/500/500 level, our dealer pitched a card to the player under the gun, and it flew off the table. The 
was returned to the top of the deck as our burn card, and we continued with the remainder of the hand as normal. The UTG player looked pretty annoyed, as you might be after having to give up an ace that should have been yours, and quickly folded their hand. The player in the hijack opened up the action to 1200, before the small blind - a lovely chap called Seth - 3-bet to the tune of 4300.
To my delight, I peeled back my cards in the big blind to reveal the second-best hand in the game, two kings, made even better by the face up ace of hearts sitting atop the dealer's deck. I gleefully bumped the price of poker up to 11200, with my hand being almost invincible. The hijack folded, and I was getting ready to pick up the pot since my play looks incredibly strong at this stage of the Main Event.
But I wasn't met with a second fold from Seth, instead what I saw was quite the opposite. Seth barely took 5 seconds to jam his covering stack into the middle, putting my tournament life potentially on the line in the early stages again.
I had 120 big blinds effective, so this was no small shove, and even with a dead ace out there I felt it warranted extremely strong consideration. As I’d 4-bet my hand, I couldn't have imagined any action that could have forced me to lay it down, but this snap-shove was changing my tune.
Working it out
I had good reason to pause. For starters, players on day 1 of the Main are incredibly protective of their stack, not to mention the fact that Seth hadn't been at all out of line during his stay at the table so far. I think we can therefore eliminate a hand like 
, which would be far too optimistic.
Next on the ladder is 
. Do we really expect someone to instantly jam in this situation with the ladies? There's a dead ace, but all the kings are still available, and I would expect at least a pause for thought to consider that fact if Seth did have queens. On that basis, I decided to rule out queens, and moved to 
. This seems incredibly unappealing for much the same reasons, as if I do have kings and call, then Seth is down to just 2 outs. Ruling out big slick as well, I was left with just two hands: the last 2 kings, and the three remaining combos of aces.
Facing this range, I felt that the only decision I could reach was to lay it down and live to die another day. I'd still have 50,000 chips and 100 big blinds on a really good table, and the edge in this spot just seemed incredibly thin - if it even existed. I tossed my cards face up into the muck, and Seth kindly flipped over the other two kings.
There’s no hiding place for a vlogger
Even seeing this, I still feel my decision was the best I could take, and it was driven by logic rather than fear, even though many may argue that's exactly what it looks like. Given that I was vlogging the event, I knew I'd have to share this laydown with the world, as I did in my day 1 video that you can find on my YouTube channel. It's safe to say that the general poker population on the internet isn't that thrilled with my fold, but it's obviously a lot easier to say that when you're not in the situation, and you can use the result to fallaciously reinforce your opinion.
I should probably mention that our UTG player let out an audible groan, and claimed to have been dealt another ace as his second card. If this was truly the case, then I've no idea what would have happened if that ace of hearts didn't fly off the table. I imagine that it would have been Seth reeling with indecision, as an UTG open would have likely been met with his 3-bet and my 4-bet, followed by a 5-bet from UTG, which seems even more like aces than Seth's snap-jam.
I'd like to think we would have both gotten away from it without further harm, and we may have had an even rarer situation where not one, but two players laid kings down preflop. Who knows?
So would you have folded? I think if you're ever going to fold kings preflop, it's almost certainly going to be on Day 1 of the Main Event, and I've seen a few other players this year doing the same correctly (shoutout to GazzyB who had possibly the easiest kings preflop laydown of all time).
Despite how crazy this spot was, I honestly think the hand that I'm going to talk about next week is even more ridiculous, and for completely different reasons.
Stay tuned.
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