Reading Other Players’ Mail

On tap for this chapter: spectacular no-limit moves du jour.  How could be make that raise?  How could be make that call?  How could be make that fold?  Answer: he was reading your mail!  He knew what card games you had, and then acted accordingly. 

I’ve often said, “If you know what the other players have when you’re playing no-limit Hold’em, then you cannot lose.”  You may as well forget about poker your math and poker-strategy books, because these hands defy all of that.  These moves were made on pure reading ability.  Here, then, are a few of the more sensational moves that I’ve witnessed.

Mansour quits stuey forever!

Back in 1992, at the World Series of Poker (WSOP), World Champions mansour Matloubi and Stu Ungar faced off in a series of $50,000 buy-in heads-up “freeze-outs” (one–on-one matches that ended when one player won $50,000).  Mansour told me he was at the top of his game at this point in his poker career, having just won the WSOP in 1990. The game of cards they were playing that day was no-limit Hold’em, and the blinds were $200-$400 when the following hand came up.

            Stuey opened for $1,900 in the small blind, and Mansour called with 4-5 off suit.  After a flop of 3-3-7 rainbow (no suits), Stuey bet $6,000-he had started the hand with $60,000 to Mansour’s $40,000-and Mansour called the $6,000 bet.  On fourth street, a king came off, and both players checked.  On the river, a queen came off, to make a board of 3-3-7-K-Q, and Mansour, smelling weakness in Stuey, bet his last $32,000 or so.  Stuey “looked right through poker ”  Mansour, and within ten seconds he said, “You have 4-5 or 5-6.  I’m gonna call you with this.”  Stuey then flipped up 10-9, and called the $32,000 bet with merely a ten high low poker! Wow, what an unbelievable call!  Stuey couldn’t have beat even a jack-high bluff with his hand, never mind any pair.  In fact, Stuey could have beaten only 4-5, 4-6, or 5-6 in this scenario.

            Give mansour some credit.  He did read Stuey right and made a great bluff.  But Stuey deserves even more credit! He not only read Mansour right, he then made an amazing call.  After Stuey called, Mansour looked up at the telling and thought, “I fell like a bulldozer just ran over me.  I still love Stuey, but what the heck is going on!” Mansour tells me now, “When a guy makes a call like that against you, you just give up.  It’s like he’s taken all the wind out of your sails.  I decided I couldn’t play him any more heads-up no-limit Hold’em, at least on that day, if not forever.” Indeed, it proved to be the last hand that Mansour ever played with Stuey heads-up (Stuey died in the late 1990s).

            Another day at that WSOP in 1992, Stuey was playing in a five handed $900-$1,200 game with Mansour on table 59, while Bobby Baldwin and “Chip” Reese were playing gin at table 60.  All of a sudden, chip turned to Stuey at the other table and said, “How did you like the way I played that hand?” Stuey, who again was busy playing $900-$1,200 at the table next door, said, “I would have knocked four draws ago with five [points].” Chip then said, “Thanks,” and rolled his eyes back in his head.

            Of course, chip knew that Stuey was right, because Stuey was considered all but unbeatable in gin.  In fact, he was so good at gin that for many years he couldn’t even get a game from anyone, anywhere.  But Chip didn’t roll his eyes back in his head because Stuey was night poker.  Rather, he rolled his eyes back because he couldn’t believe that Stuey was watching his every move while simultaneously playing high-stakes poker!

            In the 1980s, Stuey was considered the best in the world at gin (in fact, he was the best for two decades), the best no-limit Hold’em player ever (by then he won two World Championships, with one more to come), and one of the best backgammon players in the world as well.  To be at top in any one of those games is quite a feat, but to be at or near the top in all three at once is truly unbelievable.  There are many other wonderful stories about seven card stud and the incredible abilities he possessed.  I’ve heard that there soon will be a book by Nolan Dalla about him, and that there is also a movie out titled Stuey that is based on his life coty award.  I’m looking forward to checking out both.