Something that is NOT against the rules, for a change

If you've played poker more than once or twice at the Las Vegas Hilton, you've probably run into Annie, a 59-year-old (which I know because it was her birthday last week, and she was telling everybody) Asian woman who practically lives there. She's too much of a character to fit into one blog post, so for now I'll limit my observations to this: If you beat her for a large pot because you played a superior hand well, she's a pretty good sport about losing. If you suck out on her with a worse hand, there will be hell to pay. And if you beat her by being tricky and non-straightforward, she will take it personally, and decide that you're scum unworthy of the game of poker. Aces and kings and queens deserve to win; if you win with junk hands, you're a disgrace, as Annie sees it.

I should note that Annie has actually been kind to me the vast majority of the time. She has some sort of clothing business, and once gave me a nice silk shirt and a silk sofa pillow, for no apparent reason. She engages in friendly chat, asks about my life, tells me about things going on in hers, etc. When there's an especially bad player at the table, sometimes we engage in quiet conspiratorial whisperings about that fact. As far as I can tell, Annie is a genuinely decent person--she just has this prominent flaw of being incredibly judgmental and rigid about how poker should be played.

I'm mostly a classic tight-aggressive player. Probably nine out of ten times that I put in a pre-flop raise, I have the predictable range of hole cards: big or medium pairs, big but unpaired cards, suited connectors. But about one time in ten I try to throw in an oddball, to keep people guessing about me: 4-2, 6-9, K-3, or whatever. When those hands hit, they are not only extremely difficult for opponents to guess that I have, but everybody watching me make such a play will remember the unorthodoxy of it, and as a result have less confidence in future situations that they can put me on a narrow, predictable range of hands.

For example, a few weeks ago I raised with an unsuited 8-9 and had one caller (Cy--a very nice guy, and better-than-average player). The flop was 5-6-7, giving me the nuts. I bet. Cy, who knows my style of play pretty well, raised. I never saw his hole cards, but he didn't need to have anything to raise me here. All he needs to know is that usually this kind of flop won't have helped my most likely holdings (such as A-K or A-J), and that therefore my bet is really a bluff and I'll have to fold to a raise. It was a smart play on his part, even if he had nothing at all. It would usually have worked. But in this instance, I had something he couldn't reasonably suspect. I re-raised and took the pot without further contest. (I think he knows me well enough to understand that I'm very unlikely to put in that re-raise without having the goods to back it up.)

Anyway, after playing for a while this afternoon, I thought too many of my raises had been with the expected hands, and it was time to throw a curve ball, so I put in a pre-flop raise with a 4-5 offsuit, from middle position. Annie was the only caller, in the big blind. As it turned out, she had a suited A-8.

The flop was 8-6-3, giving Annie top pair/top kicker, and giving me an open-ended straight draw. She checked, then called my bet. The turn card was a 2, completing my nut straight. Now I was confident that I had her, so my thoughts turned to how to get all of her chips. (I thought she probably had an overpair--9s or 10s or jacks--which was wrong, but wrong in a way that didn't matter.) She checked again, and I bet about half of her stack, figuring that if she called that bet, she'd be pot-committed and put in the rest on the river no matter what came. She called.

The river was probably the worst possible card for her: a third 8. She clearly thought this was Yahtzee for her, and moved all-in. I called and won.

It took her a few seconds to put the pieces together retrospectively and figure out what I had done, but then the torrent was unleashed: "You raised before the flop with 4-5???" That's where the tirade started. I won't try to quote the whole speech, but among other things she invoked a curse on my immortal soul. Let's just say that Annie most definitely does not approve of non-standard plays of that nature--especially when they end up with her losing her entire stack of chips.

Well, Annie, you sweet, crazy lady, I know there's not a chance in hell you'll read this, but I'll say it anyway: It's neither against the rules nor unethical to put in a pre-flop raise with a crappy little 4-5 offsuit. Yes, it's unorthodox, but that's the whole reason for it. Poker is a game of deception. Since I know you'll think I most likely have something like A-K or A-Q when I raise, doing it when actually holding 4-5 is deceptive. It's allowed. In fact, practicing occasional deception of exactly that sort is encouraged by every poker strategist I've ever read. And the reason, obviously, is precisely because of the kind of two-fold effect I achieved today. First, you were completely blindsided by the straight. Second, from this day forward, any time the board makes something like 4-5 a very strong potential holding, you'll have to wonder whether that's what I have again, when I actually have A-K and got no help from the community cards. It will make it easier to bluff successfully in such a spot, and/or you'll play your hand less aggressively than you should because you're afraid that I'm pulling another stunt like today's. That's exactly what I hoped to accomplish, on both counts.

So spare me your self-righteous moralizing about correct play, as if you are the Moses of poker, entrusted with stone tablets engraved by the finger of God, declaring which starting hands are worthy of a raise and which ones aren't. Nothing in poker is that cut and dried. (What a boring game it would be if it were!) It appeared to me--and I'm really not vain about this sort of thing so as to imagine it--that everybody at the table, except for you, admired my play and the outcome, and was laughing at you during your rant, because you weren't able to just say, "Nice hand," let it go, and move on. With your "there's only one right way to play" speech, you were the loser today, in ways more fundamental than who was stacking up the chips, and who had to re-buy.