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Legendary Poker Hands

Texas Holdem No-Limit WSOP 1985

$10,000 Main Event: Ace Confidence Finishes Cloutier

T.J. Cloutier		Billy Smith
	VS

The Flop	The Turn	The River

the result

The action started to really heat up when it was time for some Heads-Up competition between Smith and Cloutier. Cloutier came into the heads-up battle as the chip leader but that was short lived when Smith's pocket kings took down Cloutier's pocket nines. Smith all of a sudden had a big chip lead. However, Cloutier continued to chip away at Smith's stack and he got back to within a quarter of the total chip amount. Cloutier's successes were helped out by the fact that Bill Smith liked to drink, or — shall we say — loved to drink. Cloutier had often said that Smith might be the tightest player in the world when he's not drinking, he might be the number one player in the world when he was feeling a nice buzz and he was a terrible player when he was drunk. The final hand began with Smith holding pocket 3's and he decided to raise, Cloutier proceeded to move all-in with an A-3, and Billy Smith decided to call. The boys waited for the flop and it came down 4-5-10, which did not help Smith out at all but still left him with six outs to win. Smith had no help on the turn or the river, and that made Billy Smith the World Series of Poker Champion.

analysis

In the final hand, Cloutier looked down at his hole cards and all he saw was an Ace, and that apparently was all he needed to see. According to Cloutier he didn't even take a peek at his kicker before he had made his decision to move all-in. He felt that he would have had the best hand anyway or at the very least two over cards if his opponent Smith was holding onto a pair. Cloutier was the better player of the two, especially in this case as Smith was drunk. Cloutier has tremendous poker skills and there is no reason to believe that he would not have outlasted Smith if he didn't move all-in with his weak hand pre-flop.

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