Played It Like an Absolute Fish
The Cincinnati Kid Includes a scene of some terrabad Poker.
The final hand
Lady Fingers is dealing and the Kid is on the button. She deals Howard the 8d and Stoner the 10s. The Kid bets $500 and The Man calls. Howard gets the Qd and Stoner the 10c. Stoner bets $1,000 and Howard raises $1,000. Stoner calls. Lady Fingers deals Howard the 10d and The Kid gets the Ac. The Kid bets $3,000 and The Man calls. The Man's final card is the 9d; The Kid gets the As. The Kid checks. The Man bets $1,000. The Kid raises $3,500 and is all in. Howard reaches into his wallet and raises another $5,000. The Man agrees to take his marker and the Kid calls the bet. The Man turns over the Jd for a straight flush. Stoner turns over the Ah, showing that he lost with a full house, Aces full of tens.
Lady Fingers: "You raisin' tens on a lousy three flush?"
Lancey: "Gets down to what it's all about doesn't it? Making the wrong move at the right time"
Was it the wrong move? Lancey doesn't just have a "lousy" three flush: he has a three flush, a three straight, and two overs. With 46 cards in the deck, any one of ten diamonds, three jacks, three queens, three nines, one ten improves his hand. That's nearly half the deck. Add in the three kings and aces for fold equity, and it's more than half the deck. Even in the worst case, the Kid has a ten in the hole, Lancey has redraws. His raise was a good one, and if I'd been playing, I would probably go 1500 -- 2000 on top instead of Lancey's minraise.
On Fourth St., the Kid bets 3000, and everyone murmurs as if this was some extraordinary bet. Hell, it's little more than half pot, and the Kid's looking at suited, co-ordinated cards on Lancey's board. This is just hideous, especially after the Kid just made two pair that beats the best possible hand Lancey could hold (pair of queens). There's $5000 out there, and he just offered Lancey 8 : 3 to call. That's almost enough right there to call, and his implied odds are enormous.
Yet, we see Lancey think about it, and think about it, and think about it some more, before he sigh-calls with the comment: "A reasonable bet". I'd've insta-called all the while singing silent Hosannas to the Poker Gods for sending me such a well heeled fish whose bet sizing is hideous. The Kid should have potted it right then and there to wreck Lancey's pot odds and SPR to make that call -EV. Collect the $5000 and move on. If Lancey called $5000, getting 2 : 1, and still makes that straight flush, at least the Kid earns "Sklansky Bucks", and knows it was a horrible call.
"The Man bets $1,000. The Kid raises $3,500 and is all in".
That $1000 bet should have been a WTF moment. On the previous street he put in three times that. It can't be a bluff since it would have to work 12 out of 13 attempts just to break even. It's not a value bet: there's $11,000 out there already, so what's another $2000? If the Kid weren't so stupid, he'd know it was an induction bet, and that his raise was 100% -EV. If Lancey had a straight or flush, he could just click it back to see if it was any good and save himself $1000. He already gave up on his bluff by not shoving all-in. Lancey isn't calling with anything two pair, or even a full, can beat. The Kid should have just called the $1000 to let him know he wasn't falling for it.
The Kid got what he deserved. He sees that big, beautiful ace that boats him up, and his brains go flying right out the window. It's the fishiest mistake one can make. The hand isn't over until you're collecting the pot. If he plays that badly, one wonders how he got to be such a hot-shot in the first place.