The Worst Bluffs in TV Poker History

There’s nothing sweeter than pulling off a sick bluff on your opponent. On the flipside, there is nothing more demoralizing and mortifying than losing a pile of chips (and cash) with a misplaced bluff. Sometimes, the player is short on chips; other times, the player misreads the strength of his opponent’s hand; and sometimes—most of the time in my case—the player just gets a little too greedy for their own good. Following our recent coverage of the Best Poker Bluffs (Part 1 & Part 2), the “month of bluffs” continues with our collection of bluffs that backfired. Be prepared to cringe.

Doug Lee Shoves Into The Nuts

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXC3TZHK1qM[/youtube]

Poker newbies, this is why you don’t play K2 offsuit. Doug Lee gets absolutely massacred in this hand, and to top it off, Kido Pham’s trash talking—and the way he revealed his nut straight—ensures that this hand will live on in poker infamy. Doug Lee said “it’s just not my day,” and he was right.

Allen Cunningham Calls Down Jamie Gold

This really belongs in the “best calls” category, but I included it anyways because more people need to see Jamie Gold with egg on his face. In typical Jamie Gold fashion, he talks way too much in this hand and gives away a ton of information, leading to Cunningham’s call with bottom pair.

Sam Trickett Picks A Bad Time To Bluff The River

With over $20 million in total live earnings, Sam Trickett is one of the best high roller tournament players in the world, but even the best make mistakes every now and then. In this instance, he lost a £20,000 pot when he re-raised his opponent and shoved into a straight. Oops.

durrrr vs. Enigma

Even if you can ignore the ridiculous blue face paint that Enigma has on, this is still a pretty bad spot to bluff. There are no straight or flushes possible, and the only hand he can be pretending to represent is trip 3s, which is unlikely considering how the rest of the hand was played.

Isildur1 Shoves Into Trip Aces With King High

There are very few people in the poker world who are more fearless than Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, but then again, there are also very few people that are as reckless as he is. In this hand—one of his very first televised appearances—he simply picked the wrong person to bluff. Had it been someone else on the table, Blom may have gotten them to fold. Instead, all he got was an early tournament exit.

Heinecker Tries (And Fails) To Bluff Isildur1

Usually, the goal isn’t to get A8 all-in preflop against AK for €500,000. Does Heinecker not know who Viktor Blom is? Something tells me that he does now.

Chip leader Cantu Loses Half His Stack on Day 6 of 2008 WSOP Main Event

Not really sure what Cantu was thinking here, but he ended up losing a 12 million chip pot when his bluff on the river was snap called by Craig Marquis. Then again, this is the same guy who called down an all-in bet with 10-5 offsuit and walked right into pocked aces. Yikes.

Dario Donks Off To Dwan

Unsurprisingly, it’s Tom Dwan involved in yet another bluff, and once again, it’s someone trying to steamroll the cash game star. This time around, Dario Minieri spews an all-in bet of $159,000 with middle pair after being check-raised by Dwan, who held top pair, king kicker. Predictably, Dwan snap calls, leaving Dario with only a 13% chance of winning the $344,000 pot. Despite running it four times, Dario doesn’t win once.

Erik “Rolex” Boneta Bluffs into Johnny Chan’s Pockets Aces, Loses $516k Pot

This is the worst bluff I’ve ever seen for several reasons. Not only is Johnny Chan never limp re-raising preflop in a five-handed straddled pot without aces or kings, he’s also never folding on such a dry flop. What exactly did Boneta put him on? To make matters worse, “Rolex” shoved all-in with no draws, putting over $200k on the line as a 98% underdog. If you look closely at around the 3:10 mark, you can actually see Boneta die a little inside. I think commentator Norm Macdonald summed up Boneta’s feelings best: “What did I just do?”