The best fold in poker history seems to be pretty clear, anyone would be hard pressed to find a better candidate than Doug Polk’s fold against Phil Hellmuth.
But for the worst in history, there’s no clear-cut candidate as in the golden era of television poker there were all too many strange folds. Users on 2 + 2 decided to investigate the issue and opened a special thread (https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip-books/worst-folds-all-time-1780765/) to compare the worst folds ever.
The discussion started over the hand played between John Juanda and Sergei Lebedev in 2019.
On the river, Sergei bet 200,000 into a pot of 1,075,000 and John folded quad sixes.
However, the author didn’t take into account that this was in a short deck tournament, which doesn’t make the fold quite so crazy. Some commentators suggested that this hand wouldn’t even make it into the top 100 worst folds, and began to offer up more obvious culprits.
Several people immediately remembered the hand when Maria Ho threw away a set on the flop.
This hand took place on the fourth day of the WSOPE Main Event in Rozvadov. A star studded table had assembled when Maria was up against Niall Farrell, Rainer Kempe and Kirsten Bicknell.
But opinions were divided on this fold too.
– The fold is really very nitty, – wrote one user. “But her train of thought is understandable. This is far from the worst howler that we’ve seen on TV".
Others however, weren't so kind.
“Maria’s fold is terrible,” said cash game regular and active 2 + 2 poster GazzyB123.
2004 Main Event Champion Greg Raymer recalled his own hand:
Among the worst is the guy who folded KK preflop against me. It was on Main Day 2A of 2009. The hand can be viewed in this video, beginning at 2:10.
“Since you didn't call, then the pass is good,” Greg said to his opponent. – You wouldn't throw away and , right?
His young opponent said nothing to this.
– Lee Childs folding queens against Jerry Yang on the main event final table should definitely be on the list, suggested sandler1860.
This pot was very hotly debated back in 2007, as was the entire final table. But due to PokerGo's monopoly on the WSOP broadcast, it hasn’t survived.
It happened at the very beginning of the final table at 120k / 240k.
Childs was UTG with queens and opened to 720k, Young with jacks 3-bet to 2.5 million, Childs called.
On the flop, Childs bet 3 million and Jerry pushed all-in.
“It seems like a bad fold,” Lee said to his opponent and showed that he was throwing away a pair of queens.
Young only tapped the table approvingly. It was probably this hand that opened the way for him to take down the tournament.
Naturally, there were memories of Mikhail Smirnov quads fold in the $ 1 million buy-in One Drop tournament:
It seems that we’ll never find out if the guy who mucked four of a kind in One Drop was right. If not, then the hand would definitely be included in the list.
That pass did not hit the camera lens at all, but we described it in detail:
Before the second break, Mikhail Smirnov folded a four of a kind against John Morgan.
Preflop Tom Dwan raised, Smirnov and Morgan called. Flop scs ... Dwan checked, Smirnov bet, Morgan called.
Turn – . Mikhail bet, Morgan called after a small pause. According to Mikhail, he suspected his opponent had a straight flush when he called, and thought perhaps it was worth checking-calling on the river, thereby saving himself 250-300 thousand – Morgan would hardly have bet a lot ...
The river came out the ... Michael put in an overbet of 700,000, and his opponent pushed all-in 3,400,000. As Mikhail said during the break, he never once folded four of a kind in Texas Hold'em, adding “It’s impossible for [Morgan] to have a full house of kings, impossible [for him to have] a full house of jacks because he did not re-raise from the button [pre-flop]. He would have re-raised with jacks and kings [pre-flop]. If he has a full house of sevens, then he’d just call [the river bet]. A bluff is impossible because he likes to play in the tournament and he is not a professional.
Phil Hellmuth has also made a lot of questionable folds in his career:
– Do you remember that there was a whole topic (https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/54/poker-beats-brags-variance/video-phil-hellmuth-folds-qq-preflop-15bb-vs-openraise-312795/) about Phil Hellmuth's QQ fold to an open raise with a stack of just 15BB?
This hand is also only available to PokerGo subscribers.
In one episode of Season 4 of Poker After Dark, Phil had 9,000 left at 300/600. A rookie who qualified via a satellite on Full Tilt raised to 1,800, Helmuth thought for 5 minutes, showed his cards to Mike Matusow, and then just folded.
Phil informed the entire table that he had thrown away a pair of queens.
Mike Sexton wasn’t believing it for a second.
– Let's bet $ 10k against your $ 1k that I had queens. – Said Hellmuth.
– Why show it to the whole world? – Mike still couldn’t couldn’t believe it.
– This is Phil, how could it be otherwise? – reminded Jennifer Harman.
“Yes, that's my game,” Phil nodded.
Tobias Reinkemeier and Scott Seiver played a big pot on the 2014 One Drop bubble.
“Scott, I was trapping,” Tobias smiled, after Seiver shoved all-in on the turn. Calling would leave him with 5 blinds left.
– Can I turn my hand over? – Tobias clarified with the tournament director.
“Everyone knows your hand anyway” Scott said.
– Really what is it?
– It’s either KQ or AQ.
You're wrong, I have better than that. I have the best starting hand in poker.
– Nice, with the club?
– With a club I would have paid the bet already.
– Sometimes there’s just nothing you can do. It’s brutal.
– I know, it is brutal.
The rivals exchanged a couple more lines, after which Scott said that he'd better shut up. But Tobias continued to reason out loud:
– You definitely don't have AQ, I don’t think you would jam the KQ either. Perhaps you have a KT or K9 with a club. I wouldn’t normally fold this, but you don’t put me on aces either… and it’s quite a big final table too.
Tobias thought for 10 minutes, after which Daniel Negreanu finally asked for a clock. In the last seconds, the cards went into the muck.
This Live at the Bike blunder was appropriately titled "Worst Fold Ever???"
Marley Cordeiro and the co-commentators were very surprised by the actions of both players on the river.
Phil Hellmuth found himself on the other side of a strange fold against Daniel Cates. In 2017 on King of the Hill he bluffed Jungleman himself heads-up and made him throw away trips on the turn.
The shocked Doug Polk commented on what was happening. We’ve described this duel in detail with all the dialogue.
Doyle Brunson broke the hearts of a lot of poker fans when he folded a T-high flush against Jamie Gold on High Stakes Poker.
This was the same legendary 4th season of the show which featured Guy Laliberté.
Played at $300 / $600 / $1,200. Guy folded UTG preflop and all the other players limped in.
– Guy waved his hands in annoyance. “I’m missing the family pot, give me my cards back!”
On the flop, Doyle bet $6k into $8k.
– I wonder how much money Jamie will lose if the flush closes? – Gabe Kaplan asked his partner in the commentary booth.
But on the turn, Gold check-raised huge and took down the pot.
Doyle later explained his fold in an interview with PokerRoad Radio:
Jamie was sure he was ahead. I understood that very well. If I risked only $ 100k, I would have easily called. But the effective stacks in the hand were $ 500k. And at that time I invested only $ 33k in the pot. To get to showdown, I’d have to risk my entire stack. My opponent was confident that he had the best hand, and in theory he has two flushes that beat me. I just decided to wait for a better situation.
Online, these folds probably happen every day. One of the most memorable of recent times was when this streamer folded the second nuts against Viktor Malinovsky in a $ 5k tournament.
Victor then showed…