Bowker was only beat by a single hand but he still decided to fold his quads. Crazy fold or read of the year?
On Day 2C of the WSOP Main Event one of the craziest WSOP hands ever happened. Kyle Bowker, an accomplished pro with $2,849,638 in live tournament winnings and a WSOP bracelet ($3,000 Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo this summer) decided to fold a monster hand to an unknown opponent.
The hand happened on Level 7 (400/800 – 100 ante) and the board read K-9-7-7-J with the King, Nine and Jack all being spades.
Bowker was facing an all-in raise on the river and tanked for a long time, eventually getting the clock called on himself. He folded just before the countdown was and showed 7-7 for quads. His opponent dragged the pot and the hole table started talking about a fold.
Brian Pempus of CardPlayer was on the scene and quickly interviewed Bowker.
He told Pempus that he almost snap-called before realizing his hand could be beat by Q-T of spades and started thinking about the hand in detail.
Bowker started off the action with a raise and bet the K-9-7 (two spade) flop after two opponents called. He bet the turn after turning quads and his opponent called once again.
After the dealer put down the Jack of Spades on the river, Bowker bet roughly the size of the pot (40,000) and was met with an all-in raise to 98,000.
”I was sure that he was happy when he saw the river and he has already 3bet me multiple times before, so I excluded Kings and Jacks from his range. Pocket nines seemed unlikely because I was pretty sure that he had no made hand on the flop or turn. That left Jacks and Queen-Ten suited but as I said Jacks seemed unlikely. I didn’t think he would ever bluff in this spot and I come to the conclusion that he has the straight flush, so I folded.”
Bowker thought for a total of 7 minutes on the river but was eventually satisfied with his fold.
”When I folded my hand face-up my opponent looked unhappy and since I recently won a bracelet I am playing even more confident, I’m quite sure I made the correct decision.”
Bowker eventually advanced with 132,200 chips to Day 3, a little below average.
