Top 3 Funniest Hands

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Irish Stew,

Irish Stew who?

Irish stew in the name of the law!

Hands up if you fell on the floor laughing? Nobody? Ok, a small giggle perhaps? You didn’t ‘get it’? Hmmm…. this ‘joke’ goes to show just how the definition of funny doesn’t mean the same to everyone!

Hopefully the following poker hands; a mix of amusing, strange, humorous, or just plain silly, will have something for everybody. Let’s get started with one of the most ridiculous hands I’ve ever seen…

Face-up cards and a river bluff!

Thankfully we don’t have to speak Spanish to follow what happened at the 6-handed table in the Campeonato Nacional PokerStars TV show at LaSexta in Spain; our friends at RedPokerTV provided a translation for the video.

So, Senor Vicente in seat 2 picked up the A♣J♣, a nice little hand, and proceeded to bet a standard 3xBB – 300 chips. With a couple of quick folds to follow, Vicente smiled and turned over his cards, only to realize immediately that the BB had yet to act!

This isn’t unusual – sometimes we lose track of the action – but what happened next is just plain ridiculous…

Senor Alfredo to his right, picking up the 9♣9♦, just calls. The whole table knows that Vicente has the ace-jack of clubs, his cards now being face-up – and the hand shouldn’t really get past the flop, which came…

9♠ 2♣ J♠

So, trip nines for Alfredo (which the players don’t know yet of course) and top pair, top kicker for our hapless Vicente, still shaking his head at his pre-flop idiocy. When Alfredo bet 200 into the 650 pot, that really ought to have been the end to it. Vicente can’t know whether his compatriot is bluffing or not, so he should just fold. However….

…He decides to raise instead!! His opponent knows his hand, but he doesn’t care or doesn’t understand!?

“I can’t believe what I’m watching!” exclaims the highly-amused player stuck in-between the two of them.

And now Alfredo re-raises, 4-betting his trips. By this time, even the dealer is caught up in the hilarity, but the crazy thing is that both players are serious. It seems as though they don’t quite get it, especially Vicente. Of course the turn has to bring the….

9♠ 2♣ J♠ (J♥)

Filling Alfredo’s boat, while giving Vicente three Jacks! The whole table is in stitches by now, and Alfredo bets 2000 into the 5500 pot. What could Vicente, his cards on show for the players, cameras and even the cleaner, possibly think is happening?

Whatever is going through his head, it’s only when the ‘middleman’ mentions pocket 9’s as a possibility that he cottons on – “Oh, pocket nines…”and…calls anyway! Even the commentators are baffled –“Hah, he’s sticking around…I just don’t get it.”

The river seems to be in on the joke….

9♠ 2♣ J♠ J♥ (2♠)

Filling Vicente’s boat, and giving him the best hand. All he has to worry about is quad deuces and J9, both highly unlikely. So Vicente checks out of position, and Alfredo bets the tiny 1000 into the 7500 pot. “Alfredo is gonna instafold”, say the experts in the commentary booth. Really? I don’t think so..!

“I’m all-in!” he announces quickly!

“Como???????” shouts the TV guy. “What??????” for those who couldn’t work that out for themselves!

“Whaaaat the fuck???? “The Freston Wizard has clouded his mind!” exclaims his colleague. And we all know who that was, right? He is the 'character who Don Quixote imagines as the thief of his books and the enchanter of the windmills’. (Thanks Google/Wiki!)

Whatever magical talents either player here might possess (very few poker ones judging by this hand!) the only problem with Alfredo’s river shove-bluff is that he has under 5000 chips left, giving Vicente 2-1 odds to call. Besides which, he has a good stack left over even if the unthinkable happens and 22 or J9 appear in his opponent’s hand.

Of course (although maybe this hand shouldn’t use this phrase!) Alfredo finally woke up and made the the call, losing the pot much to his own amazement.

Although there are many online comments to this hilarious hand, I think the phrase WTF DID I JUST SEE??? pretty much sums it up!

♣ ♠ ♦ ♥

‘Slow-roller’ Hellmuth should’ve run it once

In any compilation of funny poker hands, there has to be at least one involving Phil Hellmuth. If he isn’t being outrageously offensive himself, you can always rely on his 'unluckiest guy in the world looks' to raise a smile from the viewers.

In this next hand, the flop has already appeared…

9♥ 10♠ 9♠

Which has hit Helmuth’s A♥ 9♦ rather nicely. With play folded around to the 14-times WSOP bracelet winner, he bets $17,000 into the $51,000 pot only to see the larger-than-life figure of Wiggins raise him to $36K, holding K♣ K♠. Doyle Brunson and Tony G get out of the way.

“What are you going to do if I move on you, you gonna call?” asks Hellmuth. “Phil, of course I have no choice but to, my brother,” says Wiggins. And so Hellmuth sits and swithers and mumbles his ‘boy, oh boy’ type grumbles – despite being so far ahead that an instashove is in order rather than this slowroll.

Eventually he does, and Wiggins instacalls, jumping out of his seat to turn over his cowboys.

“I didn’t mean to slowroll,” said Phil, and perhaps to make everyone feel less annoyed, he offered Wiggins to run it more than once. “Three times?” asks Phil, with Wiggins still in shock at the trip nines facing him. “Four times?” asks Phil, as the commentators remind everyone at home that “our loose cannon has one foot out the door!”

And here’s where it gets funny, or at least interesting. Phil Laak starts to take Hellmuth to task for slow-rolling, and Hellmuth gets hissy about it, telling Laak that he has been “so far out of line every time we played, and I’m just sick of it.”

Well, with everyone on Phil’s back - “he’s right, that was a pretty sick slow-roll,” piped up Negreanu, as Hellmuth protested his innocence – the first run backed him up, and the turn and river handed him the first $50K.

Run it once:9♥ 10♠ 9♠ (J♥ A♦)

But of course, every time Wiggins doesn’t hit, his next run % goes up! And big Phil’s mouth turned south when the second run gave Wiggins his full house, and $50K to stay in the game.

Run it twice: 9♥ 10♠ 9♠ (K♥ 3♣)

Not content with this, Wiggins somehow managed to wiggle even more money out of the hand, with the flush coming home – to the general mirth and merriment of all, except Hellmuth naturally, his skin taking on a rather green hue, while Wiggins and Negreanu shared a high-five.

Run it thrice: 9♥ 10♠ 9♠ (7♠ 8♠)

One run to go, and the odds may still have been well in Phil’s favour, but the laughter of the poker gods made it unlikely that he would break even on this hand – and so it proved. Despite Hellmuth managing to shake Wiggins hand and force a wry smile from his sickly pallor, the turn queen of clubs added a straight to Wiggins’ outs, which he didn’t need when the case King fell and the table erupted!

Run it, errr, four times: 9♥ 10♠ 9♠ (Q♣ K♦)
So there you have it folks. Sometimes you bring bad luck all by yourself – and then have to put up with the ridicule and scorn of millions. On this occasion at least, Phil managed to take it with good (for him) humour.

♣ ♠ ♦ ♥

Fang loves the ladies!

For the majority of men in this world, it is well-known that women/ladies/females/call them what you will, are almost certain, at some point, to cause you much more grief than they are worth.

It seems as though nobody warned Yi Fang, however, before he rocked up to the feature table at the 2013 WSOP Main Event.

The Canadian walked into the limelight at exactly the wrong time; as he sat down and asked if he was able to play his hand, he had no idea that pocket aces were already at the table, in the shape of Jonathan Jaffe.

Even worse, the dealer had handed Fang Q♣ 10♣ and he instantly raised Jaffe’s 45K bet to 70K.

“Sir, I tell you, I’m a lucky man!” proclaimed Fang in the silliest accent you’re likely to hear outside of ‘Borat: The Movie’ followed by some bizarrely unintelligible line. Listen to it 100 times and tell me what he’s saying?

Anyway, Fang’s accent only adds to the man’s hilarious happiness, as he boasts, “I’m a stupid, crazy…and lucky!” Lucky being what he was going to need, as Jaffe re-raised to 240K – which only elicited a quick, “ I cover you, right?” from Fang. “I have a big hand”, claimed Jaffe. “How big..?” asked Fang as he counted out the call. Things were about to get very interesting…

Q♥ 7♣ 8♦ came the flop, and brought a world of hurt with it for Fang.

Jaffe’s 300,000 bet into a 537,000 pot showed he meant business, and Fang, acting hurt, said, “You don’t know I love lady? I’m all in!”

Jaffe’s “I call”, was instantaneous. “I love lady, lady come in,” exclaimed Fang, and then repeated it smacking his fist not his other hand, a little dance at the table to accompany it!

“Please! Lady, lady, lady”, chanted Fang, as the rest of the table could only look on smiling and scratching their heads.

Q♥ 7♣ 8♦ (J♦)

“Nine, ten, queen”, sang Fang, as the turn brought him some more outs, adding a rendition of “Ole…ole,ole,ole,” coupled with “We are the champions” sung in about the most wrong key ever!

“If I lose, I hope you win sir!”, said Jaffe, completely bemused and won over by Fang’s infectious enthusiasm.

“Nine, ten, queen. Nine, ten, queen. Please, please, please,” sang the little Chinese-turned-Canadian player, but it wasn’t to be as the board bricked with the 5♥, leaving Fang’s tournament hopes seriously dented.

He wasn’t finished yet though, regaling the table with another ‘I love lady story’ from a different event where the river brought him better luck. “Does this guy make an entrance or what!?” asked the commentators, only to watch in amazement as Fang immediately got stuck into another hand of Q♠10♣.

This time Sears had picked up the monster, his A♠K♠ giving him good cause to raise all-in. And yet again Fang found his chips in the middle! “Of course he calls,” was the commentary booth’s line, “he caught a lucky lady!”

“I have a lady, I always call,” said Fang, seemingly not caring that he’ was into the remaining 150 of the Main Event and had just chucked ¾ of his two million stack.

“It’s not the most solid theoretical poker,” was the slightly sarcastic comment from the commentary team. Of course, they were right, but why would Fang spoil the show by playing proper poker? He had found his 15 minutes of fame and was giving it all he had!

K♦ 6♠ A♦ came the flop, again giving Fang an out.

“I first double you up,” he said pointing to Jaffe, “and then double you up!” gesturing to Sears. I am come here as a donation!” stated Fang, laughing at his own predicament.

With the 5♥ and the 9♦ completing the hand, Fang was once again bleeding chips, but still able to fist-bump Sears at the end!

Fang’s short but hilarious feature table debut ended very shortly afterwards, but his 138th place finish and $50,000+ payout was just reward for one of poker’s most amusing little vignettes. Poker needs some nice characters, and Fang fit the bill perfectly!

♣ ♠ ♦ ♥

That's all we have time for today, but if you have any favorite funny hands, share them in the comments below!