Mistakes – Checking down vs bluffing a dry side pot By rob stephens I was playing in a poker tournament the other day and a short stack shoved all-in. Two players called him. After the flop one of the players bet and the other folded ace high. The online poker player who bet had made top pair of a jack with KJ. The short stack had nothing and ended up losing. The interesting part was that the other poker online player was upset that they did not check the hand down. “I always check it down when someone is all in” he said. This common misconception frustrates me. Unless it’s a money bubble or pay jump, why would you ever want to slow play a hand in hopes of knocking a player out? With top pair he’s already likely to be in the lead. What is the benefit of losing a player in the middle of a tournament? If you like your table and don’t want to get split up or have another player moved into the empty spot, it might actually behoove you to keep the short stack alive. Anyway, the automatic check down misconception bugs me. Conversely, some people disregard it completely when money is on the line. I was in another game, a SNG, where a guy bluffed dry side pot on a 3 way hand with the short stack all on the money bubble. He had QJ for queen high and the short stack won with king high, K-3. I folded K-7, which missed the flop but would have chopped with the short stack. Instead the short stack tripled and we prolonged the bubble, to no one’s advantage but the short stack. Without a side pot, the bluffing player stood to win nothing if queen high wasn’t good. Even if it was good, the short stack was guaranteed to see the turn and river and perhaps draw out. He had no draw, so there was no reason to try and build a pot in hopes of locking up a big score on later streets. Some people just don’t understand why they do what they do.