Next best

I'm watching a "Poker After Dark" cash game from June that I had not previously seen. Phil Laak starts with 8h-9h, flops trips, turns a full house. Phil Hellmuth calls Laak's ever-larger bets on every street, including $22,200 on the river, losing something like $37,000 on the hand--with ace high.

After stewing for a few minutes, Hellmuth finally mutters, "I should have played back, actually."

At this, Gus Hansen pipes up: "Well, at least you found the second-best option."

Poker faces

From the new episode of "High Stakes Poker," this week's contestants for best poker face are Gun Hansen (doing his Viffer impersonation) and Tom Dwan (who always seems to make an appearance in these posts).

Poker words, #3

Reading Gun Hansen's new book, Every Hand Revealed, last night, I came across two terms that were new to me.

On p. 25: "I open for 600 two off the button with Jc5c, the button click-raises to 1,200, and I call."

The term "click-raise" is apparently not original to Gus, as a Google search finds it a few other places (e.g., here), but I can't find a clear definition anywhere. I'm guessing from context that it is intended to mean the same as "minimum raise," and that it originates from the fact that most (maybe all) online sites make it easy to put in this kind of raise by having a dedicated button for it (as well as for a pot-sized bet/raise and an all-in raise, but for any other raise amount, you have to type in the size of the bet/raise or use the slider).

That said, I have to point out that in this particular situation this was not the minimum legal raise. The blinds were 100/200. Gus's opening raise was to 600, a raise of 400. Therefore, the minimum re-raise would have been another 400, to a total bet of 1000. It would be peculiar if the first time I came across a new term it was in a context in which it was being used incorrectly--but that may be the case here. Alternatively, it may be that "click-raise" refers to a raise that exactly doubles the previous bet, whether or not that constitutes a minimum raise. I don't know.

The second term new to me was just three pages later. On p. 28, he describes getting all-in against an opponent on the turn, with his flush ahead of the other guy's three-of-a-kind: "He calls, shows a set of nines, and we are down to the skill-card."

I like the whimiscal, ironic phrase "skill card" for whatever comes after all the money is in. But it shouldn't be hyphenated.

Off to a bad start

My brand-spankin'-newest book is Gus Hansen's Every Hand Revealed. It's a great idea for a book, and unprecedented: He documents and dissects every one of the 329 hands he played during his victorious run at the Aussie Millions tournament in 2007, discussing the situation and what he was thinking. It should be a fascinating insight into a highly unorthodox poker mind.

I just received my copy Friday, and cracked it open this evening to start in on it. I was dismayed to find this in the dedication:

To Chip Reese--


Remembering the Ones who left way to soon
but still enrished our lives in many ways....

*cringe*

Is there at Kensington Publishing Company not a single person with the title of "editor," one who is charged with, e.g., knowing the difference between "way to soon" and "way too soon," or knowing that there is no s in "enriched"?

Bah! If there is a misspelling on every line of the book, as with every line of the dedication, I'm going to be as bald as Gus by the time I finish reading it.