Mike Matusow online replay

Mike Matusow moves all in after flop, out of position on a nut flush draw. Watch to see what he runs into. As an added bonus, along with the replay, you also get some interesting commentary.

Though the commentary is fairly critical of Mike's play, I've seen people make this play all day long during on-line poker tournaments and though he was unlucky, it's not as bad as the commentator suggests. Often on 5-6 bb raises, both players miss the flop and whoever bets first takes it down.

Mike: AdQd
other player: 44

Mike's on the BB, and the other player

Flop: 7d4c4d

Mike is first to bet which means has it's pros and cons. Realistically, unless the other player had pocket fours or sevens, mike would still have possibly up to 15 outs. The advantage to betting first is that if the other player missed the flop and doesn't have a decent pocket pair, then he can't call if you bet enough.

Unfortunately for Mike, the player made a 5-6x BB raise on pocket 4's and got an extremely lucky flop. One thing that is clear is that mike was in a pot vs. a fairly loose-aggressive player who simply got lucky. Preflop, they had nearly a coin toss either way in terms of who would win. After the flop, poor mike was drawing dead. Regardless of how he played it, it would have been pretty hard to put a loose-aggressive player on flopping quads.

What's worse, is that when you watch the replay, you see that though Mike didn't catch his flush, he did catch an Ace on the turn. Realistically, the only hand you could really put the guy on that you would have to worry about is maybe pocket sevens, AK, or maybe AA. Even if Mike had checked the flop, the other player would likely have done the same. Then Mike would have paired his ace and probably made a pretty large bet.

Again, when your in a tournament and you are first to bet after the flop, and you've got a nutflush draw as well as a few overcards, if you simply check, then the other player regardless of his hand can make a large enough bet that you can't rationally make the call in terms of pot odds. After all, it's far different play to be the one moving all in with the hand that mike had than it is to call someone else who goes all in when you only have a flush draw and a few overcards.