Red Herring

I've come up with a new poker term: Red Herring

Consider the following hand:

You have AhQh on a board of JhTs3c and bet and your opponent shoves for not much more and you decide to call figuring you could have as many as 10 outs and probably at least 7. To your dismay he turns over 33 for a set leaving you with just 4 outs. Now, the turn is the 8h giving you a flush draw and a double-gutted straight draw so instead of 4 outs, you have 13 (3 non-heart Kings, 3 non-heart 9s, and 7 non-board-pairing hearts). Your situation has improved greatly! You eagarly await the river card while your opponent bemoans his bad luck. The river is the Kd giving you the nut straight and the win!

The 8h in that hand is the Red Herring. It is a card (or cards in the case of a Red Herring flop) that gives someone who is way behind (generally drawing to 4-5 outs or less) many more ways to win the pot. In the end, the Red Herring is just a distraction from the real way the player wins the hand as the river is a card that completes one of the original 4-5 outs that the player needed.

Here's an example I witnessed myself: Two players in a tournament got it all in preflop. One turned over ThTd and the other proudly showed KdKc. The flop was a somewhat uneventful 875 with two hearts, though it did give the TT a lot of backdoor possibilities. The turn was an amazing 6h giving the TT a flush draw, a gut-shot to win (a nine), and a gut-shot to tie (a four) in addition to his two outs to a ten. The brutal river card was the Tc giving the TT a set and the win and making the 6h on the turn just a Red Herring.

Watch out for good examples of Red Herrings in your own poker games and spread the term!