Wee hours, at a half-empty 4-seat ring table.
We both limp; I’m on the button with J4o. V flops a baby straight 3-7 with 53o. Crazy. I made bottom pair. Naturally, I won the hand. Even crazier.
V checked it to me on the flop, I bet pot, hoping they missed and will just fold again, but they call.
Turn is another 4, improving me to trips. Ha ha, there’s no way I can lose now! I think to myself. V checks to me, and I bet again, this time increasing it to 3000. Very daring. Well, I would go bigger, but I don’t want him to fold here, do I? V again just calls.
What’s the worst card in the deck for V, you ask? You might say a Jack, because a J probably wouldn’t mean much to them on this board, and they might think they still have the nuts while I would have made a boat here. I guess another 6 or 7 to make the board full house would suck a lot for a flopped straight, too, since it would mean at best they’re chopping, and possibly losing to a few random 6 or 7 hands. But the next worst card for them would have to be the last 4 in the deck, which is what the river card is. I now have made quads. Hooray.
This time, V opts to lead into me for 5k with their straight, still unimproved from the flop. I have bet two streets so far, so I probably have something, a pair, would make a full house with 3 fours on the board, and he’s beat. Why is he betting here? No one’s folding a full house, much less quads on this board. He’s only getting called by hands that can beat the straight he flopped.
So what do I do? I want value for my quads. I figure he has a 6 or 7 and thus a full house, and now I’m going to get some chips here. I raise his 5000 bet to 16000, hoping that he’ll go all-in with 777s or 666s full of 44s or even just 444XX if he’s got pocket-somethings.
He thinks about it for a long time, and eventually does call, unable to lay down his counterfeited flopped straight. What a sick runout for V.
This culminated an hour long session at a 4-seat ring table where I was basically running in God mode, hitting everything, making all kinds of hands, and generally good any time I hit for middle pair or better (a lot of the time improving to two pair+ by showdown, and being good.)
I’ve watched a lot of players run similarly well when I’ve sat at their table, but it almost never happens to me.