Reinventing the Wheel
We noticed a table with longtime pros Matt Affleck and Keven Stammen had been joined by fellow tournament grinder Jacob Bazeley, so we stopped by to see what might happen.
Sure enough, Bazeley soon played a sizable pot and managed to extract significant value despite missing his flush draw. Confused? So was Bazeley's opponent.
The flop came down and two bets of 1,300 or so went into the middle, while both players checked the on the turn.
When the completed the board on the river Bazeley's opponent fired away with a 3,200 wager, only to see the young pro with more than $1.2 million in live tournament earnings raise the action to 10,600. The man appeared to be pained at the sight of such a large raise, but he soon paid the bet off with a crying call, only to peer across the table in surprise when Bazeley tabled the for a rivered wheel straight.
"Ahhhh...." cried the man when he saw the bad news. "Knew ya missed the flush draw. Nice hand."