Coolers

Aaaaah, “coolers”..... That dreaded word that poker players hate.  Well, we hate them if we are on the losing end of one.  If we are the winner of a “cooler” hand then we are happy, overjoyed even!!!  But we generally don’t speak about the hand for a good few minutes, especially to the person on the receiving end. That is because the person on the receiving end of a cooler is usually on “suicide watch” at this point in time & we do not want to tip them over the edge.  We have all been there & we just want to sit & bathe in our own self-pity for a while, we certainly don’t want to talk about it.  The main reason is because virtually EVERY single cooler will be for a big pot and/or both players stacks inevitably.  When someone has just lost their entire stack in one hand, the last thing they want to hear is “awww thats horrible mate, you couldn’t have done anything different though”

At this point, half of you are thinking “What the friggin hell is a cooler Andy?  We aren’t all poker players”.  So here is the best way i can explain it..... During any given hand/pot, 2 players both have such strong hands that all they are thinking is “I need to get all my money in the middle here & make sure my opponent does the same”.    Basically it’s when 2 extremely strong hands come up against each other & all the money is going to end up in the middle one way or another.

A few examples of coolers then, and i couldn’t do this blog without commenting on the worst cooler i have probably ever seen which happened to a mate of mine (Danny Fogg) at Salford Grosvenor this week... So Foggy has got JJ on a J74 flop.  There are 5 or 6 players in the hand, there is a bet of £3 & a call, Foggy makes it £11, original better reraises, Foggy goes all-in & the other lad calls with pocket 4’s.  So they both have a set, its virtually impossible for either player to fold a set regardless of the board but this is like the driest board ever too! Foggy at this point is a 96% favourite and, not wanting to slowroll, shows his JJ and as the river comes the remaining 4 to give the other lad quads he wins about a £200 pot.  Foggy actually took it reasonably well & laughed but the only other option is to cry & he wouldn’t have wanted to do that at the poker table!!

Another example is from a few weeks ago, i have 67 of diamonds in the big blind & its limped round to me, i check & the flop comes down all diamonds. Now, the chances of flopping a flush are 1 in 118 so its a massive hand for me.  I check-raise & the other lad just calls, i am putting him on a hand like top pair & he doesn’t wanna see another diamond, or maybe Ace of diamonds with a pair too & he is playing it passively.  When the turn is a non-diamond he goes all-in & i snap call. He turns over a higher flush!   Siiiiiiiiigh !!

Aces vs Kings is another much simpler version of a cooler as quite often it will be all-in preflop.  I actually got aces vs a friend of mine's kings at 235 the other week, but we didn’t get it all-in til the flop as he played it sneakily & just flatted my raise preflop. On a 10 high flop he led out, i shoved & he made THE quickest snap call of my life!!! The turn & river were bricks & i won about a £200 pot.

So, to sum up.... coolers are like the devil himself interfering in a poker game !! they are cruel to the loser of them, but they make the best bad beat stories ever and, once they have calmed down, usually the person will literally tell anybody willing to listen!

My next blog is already partially written & is entitled "Why do people hate money?", it should be on here by Tuesday