A conventional piece of poker advice is to play opposite the way your table is playing. If the table is loose and a lot of players are taking a flop, for instance, the idea is to play tight and wait for big hands to take down big pots.
Aggressive pro Kirk Morrison faced the opposite situation at the $10,000-buy-in World Series of Poker main event at the Las Vegas' Rio Hotel in 2007. His table was playing tight in the opening level of $50-$100 blinds, so he set out to loosen up things.
"In situations like that, I wanted to show a bluff," said Morrison, winner of one WSOP bracelet. "I want people to give me action later on.
"I was trying to get to the river and show it if I could manage the pot. I already had it in my mind that I would finish this pot somehow."
After a player in early position limped, Morrison limped from the cutoff with 2-3 offsuit, a bluffing hand if there ever was one. Both blinds also played.
Four-handed, the flop came 3-3-jack, rainbow. Morrison was trying to bluff, and here he hits three of a kind.
After the blinds checked, the initial limper made it $200. Morrison raised to $600, trying to isolate the initial limper because they had a history.
"The guy played back at me in a previous hand when I had a draw," Morrison said. "I think he smelled it out that I was bluffing.
"I raised it to $600 - the same $600 I bet before
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when he caught me trying to steal the pot. I even did the same kind of cut with my chips."
Both blinds folded. Morrison's opponent called. The turn came the king of diamonds, adding a flush draw to the board. The initial limper checked. Morrison bet $1,400 into a $1,600 pot.
"The $1,400 was more than three-quarters of the pot and I hoped to get a bite out of him," Morrison said.
Didn't happen. Morrison's opponent folded, and Morrison won the pot with a real hand. So, his attempt to make the table believe he was running a bluff seemed to have failed. But no. Like any quick-thinking poker player, he got the job done by showing the table his deuce.
"I wanted to show something, and there's no way I could have deuce-3 suited because the 3 of hearts was on the board, so that's why I showed the deuce of hearts," Morrison said with a smile. "So, I'm either playing K-deuce offsuit or J-deuce offsuit in their minds. I tried to throw them for a loop."