Irony: A poker story in four parts (non-grumpy content)

I will never use this blog to relate bad-beat stories, unless there is a larger point to them. Besides, the things I experienced today technically don't count as "bad beats," because when the money went in...

Wait. I'm already getting ahead of myself.

Part 1.

Long session at the Hilton today. I started with my usual buy-in of $100, and had a hot streak early on, up to about $400 by the end of the first hour. From there I grind it up further. I'm at maybe $600 when I have my run in with Hopelatron #1. (For the definition of hopelatron, see http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/07/hopelatrons-and-seeing-future-non.html.) He is new to the table, and has played only a few hands. He's on my immediate left. I have the button, and join a bunch of other limpers with my crummy little Ah-2s. The flop is all hearts. This give me considerable hope for this hand.

H#1 bets $10. I'm the only caller. The turn card is another heart, giving me the nuts. He checks, I check. I want him to think that I absolutely hated that fourth heart hitting. Apparently he does, because he bets in the dark, not even waiting for the dealer to put out the river card. His bet is $35, and he has maybe $100 left, so I figure he must have a high heart, and he's probably willing to put it all in. I move all-in. He calls. Sure enough, he has the king of hearts. (I don't remember what his other card was, but it wasn't a heart.) He's a very nice guy, and takes the loss in stride, though he's much more astonished by it than I think he should be.

Look at it this way. Sure, there was only one card in the deck that could beat him, but with 9 opponents each having 2 cards, there is about a 35% chance (18/52) that one of them was dealt that ace of hearts. Yes, he or she might have folded it, but people tend to hang on to aces, especially when there is no pre-flop raise. So it shouldn't have been all that surprising to him that that's what I had.

He kept marvelling at how unlucky he had been for me to have the one card that beat him. Well, yeah, it was unlucky. But as degrees of unlucky go, it was run-of-the-mill, happens-every-day, garden-variety unlucky. It wasn't oh-my-God, take-your-breath-away unlucky. But I do what I'm supposed to do, for reasons of both politeness and strategy: I enthusiastically agree with him that he just got amazingly unlucky. Hopelatrons always believe that they lose because of bad luck, and it's best to encourage them in this delusion. They are much happier that way than if they have to confront the fact that they're not very good players, and their happiness keeps them coming back to the table after trips to the ATM for more cash to spread around.

After a few more pleasantries ("Nice hand," shaking my hand, etc.; like I said, he was a good sport about the whole thing, bless him), he departs.

Part 2.

Maybe 30 minutes goes by uneventfully. Then I find pocket aces in the big blind. Because there are many limpers, I put in a hefty raise to narrow the field, but still get three callers, including Hopelatron #2. The flop is A-K-Q rainbow, giving me three aces, the second best possible hand at this point. It doesn't get much better than that. I have played with H#2 before, and know him to be overly aggressive. I'm highly confident that he'll take a pretty big stab at this pot if I check to him, so I do. Sure enough, he pushes out $50. The other two players quickly fold. I move all-in. I'm not too surprised when H#2 calls, but I have to admit I am surprised when he turns over the only hand that has me beat, J-10 for the straight. Damn. Still, there are seven cards I can catch on the turn to make either a full house or quads, and then ten more cards on the river. But it is not to be. I lose about $200 to H#2.

How unlucky is this? Well, A-A vs. J-10 is about 83%/17% by the time all five community cards are out. But I think that underestimates the rarity here, because it's giving all five cards for the underdog to catch up. J-10 will flop a straight 1.3% of the time. (See Matthew Hilger's book, Texas Hold'em Odds and Probabilities, p. 189.) That includes four different straights, however, only one of which contains an ace, thus simultaneously giving me the trips I need to abandon all caution. The probability of J-10 getting exactly the three cards needed on the flop (A-K-Q) to arrive at this situation, when two of the four aces in the deck are already sitting in my hand and thus unavailable, is 0.09%, by my calculation; that is, it will happen only once every 1081 times that these two starting hands clash.

Part 3.

About five hands later I'm in middle position when I spot another pair of aces. Again I raise, and get three callers. Again I hit a set of aces on the flop (even though, on average, this will happen only once in every 8 or so times). But this flop is all hearts. Uh-oh, potential trouble, since my aces are clubs and diamonds. Hopelatron #3, who was in the big blind, is a guy I've played with many times before. I know him to love his flush draws. He bets out $30. I raise to $100 to dissuade him. The other two callers scatter like cockroaches. H#3 doesn't re-raise me, but just calls. I am left unsure whether he has a made flush or is holding just one heart and is hoping for another one to come on the board.

The turn card is a blank. H#3 checks. I have a ray of hope, because if he's on a draw, he probably won't call a second large bet here. I push out $150. He insta-calls. Crap, crap, crap. I know this guy well enough to know now that he has it made, and he's not going away. My only chance is the river card pairing the board to give me a full house, or the last ace for four-of-a-kind. Nope. That's not happening. H#3 checks again, and so do I. I show my set of aces, and he confirms my suspicion with the measly 6-8 of hearts. I don't say anything, but I confess that an involuntary rolling of the eyes betrayed my feelings about the situation.

How unlucky is that? This is more straightforward than the previous calculation: His two suited cards will flop a flush 0.8% of the time (odds being 124:1 against it).

In the space of ten minutes, I had twice been given pocket aces, twice hit trips with them on the flop, and both times was beaten for very large pots. I had lost about $500 just that fast. I'm not whining here, but objectively speaking, that's world-class, immense-pain, put-the-poor-bastard-on-suicide-watch, please-let-me-trade-places-with-Job-and-his-body-covered-with-boils unlucky. The other players at the table understand that well, and there are groans of sympathy for me from all over. The word "brutal" gets repeated a lot. I think that "brutal" doesn't begin to cover it. I'm not sure any word does.

To the best of my recollection (and I think I'd remember it), I've never flopped trip aces and lost to either a flopped straight or a flopped flush--and here they both happen almost back-to-back.

Part 4.

Less than three minutes later, H#1 returns, and sits down next to me, where he had been before. He tells me that he hit a good streak at the craps table, and has made back the money he previously lost to me. (It is a sure sign of a hopelatron to decide that craps--a game with an absolutely unbeatable, fixed edge against him--is a better way to win money than playing poker.) He's feeling good.

He recounts once again his amazement about how incredibly unlucky he got in that hand, losing with a king-high flush to my ace-high flush, shaking his head in disbelief. I'm still reeling and dizzy from the previous two hands, feeling about as snakebit as I can recall ever experiencing. But I know that H#1 has no clue what transpired while he was gone, nor would he have any reason to care about my personal misfortune. He feels his own pain far more acutely than he could ever feel mine.

So I smile as kindly as I can, and tell him, "Yeah, that was about as unlucky as a guy can get, all right."

"I hate (jacks) (queens) (kings) (aces) (ace-king)"

I am SO tired of hearing poker players complaining about getting premium hands. You've all heard it, too: "I hate ace-king." "I hate queens." Or whatever. Among all the things you can say at a poker table that show just how stupid you are, this ranks high on the list.

Let's look at this objectively--mathematically. At a typical table of ten players, if everybody stays in the hand until the end every time, you obviously average a 10% chance of winning any given hand. Put another way, before the cards are known, you have a hypothetical 10% equity in the pot that will develop.

If you are dealt AA, however, your equity jumps to a whopping 31%. That is, even if nobody ever folds, you will win the hand 31% of the time, while all the other random hands have their equity drop from 10% to about 8% against your bullets. The glass-half-empty types will note that that means losing 69% of the time. Yeah, but before you looked down and saw the aces, you expected to lose 90% of the time, right? Seeing that AA staring back at you suddenly tripled your chances of winning against nine random hands, and since you know that not all nine of them are going to stay in until a final showdown, your equity in the pot keeps going up every time one of your opponents mucks.

(For an excellent, free, downloadable tool you can use for running this sort of calculation, go to http://www.pokerstove.com/.)

I think I hear the "I hate ________" gripe most often with respect to ace-king and pocket jacks. This, too, is highly irrational. Suited A-K begins with 21% equity (double your usual value with a random hand), and unsuited A-K has 17%, against everybody else's approximately 9%. What--you don't like having more than twice the chance of winning as your opponents? Then you're an idiot.

Even the much-despised pocket jacks have 19% equity against everybody else's 9%. On average, you will be getting twice as much money back from this hand as you put into it. If that's a situation you hate, you need to have your medications adjusted.

Notice that people never use the "I hate _________" line for little pairs, such as 5-5. But that hand has only 12% equity in the pot, against everybody else's 10%. It's a tiny, tiny margin, compared to what the premium hands give you. So why doesn't anybody say that they hate being dealt pocket 5s? The answer is pretty clear: It's because they know how to play that hand with a single, simple, dichotomous decision. You try to see the flop cheaply, and if you hit three-of-a-kind you stay in, and if you don't you muck it.

So beneath the surface, players who say they hate jacks or kings or queens, but don't say they hate small pairs, are actually telling you, "I don't know how to play premium hands for good value." Whether they know it or not, they're actually saying, "I'm a really bad player."

The other day when I was catching up on some back issues of Bluff magazine, I was pleased and surprised to find a column by Angel Largay in which he says just about the same thing I always think when I hear that tired old complaint (March, 2007, issue, p. 100):

What preconceived notions and flat out self-deceptions about your poker
skill and knowledge are you clinging onto, and how much are they holding you
back? I guarantee that you can absolutely become a better poker player than you are now. Absolutely guarantee it, and here's how: Just cut through whatever B.S.
you're feeding yourself and get honest. Some of the stuff might be brutally
simple--like you hate pocket jacks. Well, pocket jacks have a positive
expectation. Yes, really, even in your $3-$6 game. If you don't like a hand that
has a positive expectation--then you just don't know how to play it correctly.
That's the truth. If it's your truth, then admit it, and you are well on your
way to fixing that problem. Deny it and you'll continue to find reasons to hate
a hand that should be making you money.

Well said.

And here's a thought: If you really hate your aces, or ace-king, or queens, or whatever other premium hand you've decided the poker gods are punishing you with, then do two things. First, throw it away when you get it. You'll be happy because you won't have to make any of the difficult decisions later in the hand that are obviously beyond your mental capacity, and I'll be happy to have you relinquish your lion's share of the pot, because it leaves me with a better chance of winning with my weaker hand. Second, just shut up about it. I would consider both actions to be a personal favor to me.

Stupid is as stupid does

Since I spend so much of my blogging time and energy denouncing the stupid things I see other people do at the poker table, now I have to call one on myself. I made the single dumbest mistake of my short career during a tournament at the Hilton today.

The second time I ever played in a live poker tournament, I exited under maybe the worst possible circumstances: I called an all-in bet with nothing. Note that I didn't bluff off all my chips aggressively, a mistake which is embarrassing, but understandable and forgiveable. No, I called with not even a pair. I did that because I forgot what my hole cards were. Somehow, in the course of the hand, my brain conflated the cards I actually had with the ones I wished I had, because the ones I wanted would have made a straight. The mental short-circuit caused me somehow to believe that I did actually have the straight. I called the opponent's bet with great confidence, turned over my cards, saw that I had absolutely nothing, and slinked away from the table, hoping that the other players would have the decency to (1) not laugh until I was out of earshot, and (2) forget my face.

A couple of months later, exactly the same mental error occurred yet again. This time, however, the result was favorable. I moved all in with my imaginary straight. I was apparently so convinced I had it that it showed, and my opponent finally folded. I turned over my cards in what I intended as a friendly gesture to show him that, yes, I really had the goods. I was horrified to see that there was a gap in my "straight." Oops! I tried to explain to him that I wasn't trying to flaunt a bluff--I had just been stupid. I'm not sure he ever believed me.

From then on, I vowed not to let this happen again, and I have adopted a habit of always checking my hole cards again just before the flop comes. On very rare occasions--maybe once a month or so--I still end up unsure of what they were, usually because something highly distracting has disrupted the flow of the hand (need to call the supervisor over for a ruling on some unusual event, an argument breaking out, stuff like that). I just recheck them, no big deal. As far as I can recall, I haven't had any repeat instances in which I became convinced that I had hole cards different from what they really were.

Until today.

I had K-Q. The final board was 7-8-9-10-Q. Obviously, anybody with a jack had the straight, and the K-J was the nuts (with no possible flush out there). And somehow, in the few seconds after the last card hit the felt, my brain suffered that same glitch that it had on two previous occasions. I don't know what it is about straights that makes me want them so badly that I hallucinate them into existence. It has never happened with flushes or full houses or anything else. Maybe I have some sort of a fetish for straights, and need professional counseling.

Anyway, I moved all-in with what I believed to be the second nuts (Q-J) and got called in two places. One guy had just the J, and a woman had the actual nuts, the K-J. They probably thought I had been bluffing. Nope. Just stupid.

The only thing that saved me was that I was the big stack at the time. She took maybe 1/3 of my chips, so it wounded me but didn't finish me off. I managed to hold on long enough to take 4th place. I might have done considerably better if I hadn't donked off all of those chips to her, though. (She finished in 3rd place.) I needed Homer Simpson to give me a big "D'oh!"

Of course, even if I had had what I thought I did, I would have lost to her higher straight, but the point is that re-checking before committing all my chips would have been the prudent thing to do.

On a recent episode of "Poker After Dark," Annie Duke confessed to occasionally having thought that she had a pocket pair when she didn't. This has happened because she looks first at the bottom card, then shuffles them, then looks at the new bottom card. But a few times she has shuffled two times instead of once, or muffed the shuffle in some way, and thus looked at the same card twice, only discovering her mistake when later revealing her hand, and getting quite a shock at having played, e.g., A-2 instead of A-A.

So if even successful, well-known pros can occasionally screw up that badly, I suppose I shouldn't beat myself up too much for making a dumb mistake three times in two years. Just the same, though, I'd really prefer that it be at least another two years before I cross those particular wires in my head again.

WARNING: Do not try this at home! (Non-grumpy content)

Last night at the Venetian I had my biggest cash game win yet. One pot was incredibly sick.

A hand I played a few months ago was written up in a recent Card Player magazine by columnist Matt Lessinger as an example of taking advantage of one's reputation as a non-bluffer to pull off a bluff. I did it in that case with a 4-2. Since then, I occasionally get tempted to go a little crazy with the 4-2 again. Last night was one of those times.

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: You should immediately forget having read this, and under no circumstances attempt to replicate the results!

I called a pre-flop raise and reraise with the 4-2. (But they were SOOOOOTED, he protests!)

I had been playing tight even by my standards, and had shown down only pocket pairs and premium hands. I was way up for the night already, and so feeling a bit loose with the cash (a terribly unprofessional attitude, I know--I'm not bragging about it, just telling it like it is). I knew that if I hit the flop, nobody could possibly put me on the hand I actually held. Of course, the probability was very low, but once in a while I just do things on a whim. I could BS about game theory and the need to throw randomizers into one's play, but the truth is I was just feeling kind of giddy and silly and reckless.) 5 people called the raise and reraise, so it was already a big pot (just another in my long string of excuses).

Flop was 9-2-2 rainbow. I led out $40 into what was maybe a $90 pot, got 2 callers, then a raise to $100. I pushed all in. The callers folded, and it was just the raiser left with a decision.
He thought for maybe 5 minutes--an exceptionally long time by the standards of $1-2 NL, anyway. He ran through what I might be holding out loud. He had watched me play for 2 or 3 hours, so certainly knew (or thought he knew) my range of hands. He was most worried about pocket 9s, appropriately. But he never once mentioned any hand with a 2 in it. Pretty clearly, he just automatically ruled those out as unthinkable for me to have called a pre-flop raise and re-raise with. (By the same reasoning, I was pretty confident that nobody was holding a 2 with a better kicker.)

He finally decided that I had JJ, and called with his QQ. I flipped over my cards. You could have gone around the table and stuck lollipops in all the mouths that were left hanging open when they saw what I had done.

My junk hand held up, and I raked in the biggest pot of the night.

It's one of the sickest, most demented plays I've ever done. And now, of course, I'll be tempted to do it again, and will probably, in the long run, give away more money trying to duplicate that moment again than I've won playing the stupid 4-2.

But it makes for a good story, doesn't it?

"He was going to get caught"

Last Saturday night I was at Treasure Island and participated in their evening tournament. I made the final table in relatively good shape, maybe 3rd or 4th in chips. But when we were down to 7 or 8 players left, I took a huge hit when the woman to my right (with a slightly smaller stack) and I got it all in before the flop. My pocket queens were a big favorite to her jacks going in, but she caught a set on the flop and took most of my chips.

I was left with only about 5 big blinds, and the blinds were going to double again in about six minutes. That means taking aggressive action, even near-suicidal action, because otherwise one has no shot. So the next four times in a row that the action was unraised before the flop when it came to me, I went all in. The first three times I picked up the blinds uncontested.

The fourth time I had A-4 offsuit, and got called by a guy with A-9. I got lucky and split the pot with him when all big cards came and our kickers didn't play.

But this post is about a comment I overheard when our hands were turned over, before the outcome of the pot was determined. I heard one player at the far end of the table tell the guy next to him, "He should have known he was going to get caught, going all-in that many times in a row." There was an unmistakable tone of derision in his voice, a "he's getting his comeuppance" attitude.

Maybe this guy didn't notice the size of my stack after the big hit. Or maybe he's a complete idiot at tournament strategy. Either way, the point is this: I wanted to get "caught." I desperately needed to accumulate chips rapidly. I certainly knew that I could only steal the blinds a very small number of times before somebody would have a hand big enough to call me. But that's the point: I wanted a call, even if that meant being in with the worst of it, because doubling up was my only chance of getting back into a position to have some control over my fate.

There were still two even shorter stacks at the table. So it's possible that I could have hunkered down, hoping that when these players were finally forced to be all-in, they'd both lose, and I'd just barely sneak into the money (top four were to be paid). But I think that's crummy strategy. It may or may not increase my chance of surviving the bubble, but it absolutely kills my chance of winning, or at least finishing deep in the money. Finishing at the top once, with no money three other times, pays better overall than finishing at the bottom of the payout schedule four times. So that's what I was going for.

As it turned out, I got "caught" again shortly thereafter, and didn't survive that encounter. I exited in 6th place. But under the circumstances, I'd do exactly the same thing again.

So, Mr. Smug Smartypants, yeah, of course I was going to get "caught." But, you see, that was the goal.

Where are the worst dealers in town?

Barry, who works at the Hilton, is one of the finest dealers I know of anywhere. He's friendly, fast, attentive, consistent, unflappable, and makes remarkably few errors. He has worked many other places, and has strong opinions of what poker dealers do right and wrong. As a result, I've chatted with him many times about problems I've encountered at other poker rooms.

A few months ago, he asked me which casino I thought had the overall worst poker dealers. That was a hard question, because every room I've visited has good and bad. But I've kept thinking about it, and I'm finally ready to answer: It's the Sahara.

I had been leaning toward that answer for quite a while, but a session there Sunday sealed the conclusion. At my table was a guy who was pretty obviously playing live poker for the first time. He made all the classic newbie mistakes: He couldn't tell when it was his turn, and so was frequently either acting prematurely or slowing us down because he didn't know the action was on him; he got confused about posting the blinds; he didn't know about getting change when needed, or pulling his change back so it didn't look like a bet; he too frequently had to ask what the bet was, and, if he already had money out, how much more it was to him; he always needed to be reminded to push his chips within reach of the dealer (Sahara's tables are bigger than average); he made string bets and raises; he'd always forget to give back his cards when he won a pot. Maybe what galled the dealer most is that he didn't know to tip. This man wasn't drunk or stupid or deliberately trying to screw things up--he was just new to the zillion little things that quickly become old hat after a few hours of live-action play.

All of this is dime-a-dozen common. I assume that dealers encounter inexperienced players like this literally every day. But one of the Sahara dealers displayed an egregious lack of patience, an unprofessional 30 minutes unlike any I've seen before. He never actually yelled at this customer, though I was expecting that to come any minute. But every time this poor guy froze like a deer in headlights not knowing what to do, or made a mistake, this dealer talked to him in the most impatient, irritated, condescending, "do-I-have-to-explain-this-to-you-AGAIN?" tone I've ever heard used by a poker dealer speaking to an inexperienced player. (I've certainly seen equally harsh manners used when a player is just being a constant jerk, and only a saint would be able to maintain a smile. But as I said, this guy wasn't being rude at all; he just needed extra help.) It was painful and embarrassing to watch.

Predictably, this dealer's annoyance rattled the player even more. He became visibly worse, presumably because he was trying so hard to do everything right to avoid getting chided again. It was obvious that a smile and a calm, reassuring manner would have been far more effective at helping him ease into the groove. It does wonders for nervous people to keep hearing things like, "It's OK, sir, you're doing fine," or, "No problem, you'll catch on sooner than you think." But this grouchy old sailor (judging from his tattoos) couldn't bear to part with a smile or a kind word for a new player. He seemed intent instead on making the guy's first casino experience one he'd never want to repeat. It was horrible.

So why do I keep going to the Sahara when they have the worst dealers in town, inconsistent spreading of my preferred game, and one of the smokiest "smoke-free" rooms? Because it's a real money-maker. Of all the places I've played five or more times, the Sahara has both the highest percentage of winning sessions and the highest average take per session. It's just a cash cow. I tend to hit it up after having two or three losing sessions in a row other places, to get a winning streak started.

But I really detest the place. I've never--not even once--had what I would consider an enjoyable time there. The smoke is one main reason for that, and having the worst dealers in town is another.

Hopelatrons and seeing the future (non-grumpy content)

That just has to be the most intriguing post title I've had yet. If you're reading to find out what it could possibly be about, it has done its job.

There's a new poker publication out, called "Under the Gun." In Vegas, so far I've only seen it being distributed at Treasure Island, though I assume they've hit other rooms, too. It's a small magazine that basically is just ads plus an overview of the contents of a DVD, which is included. All free, of course. The DVD is like a poker feature magazine for TV. It's really quite well done. Nothing like in-depth analysis, but interesting feature pieces.

The magazine does have one bit of content that isn't on the DVD, and that's part of an interview with Phil Laak, who I think is one of the most interesting poker pros. I think he's an unusually bright guy. Hmmm. I should perhaps explain that comment. Nearly all poker pros are reasonably bright people. But there are a few who strike me as having the kind of IQs and general intellectual capacity that would allow them to successfully take on just about any subject if they found an interest in it. These include Barry Greenstein, Eric Seidel, Howard Lederer, Allen Cunningham, Chris Ferguson, David Sklansky, Paul Phillips, and Andy Bloch. I would not make the same statement about most pros, including, e.g., Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Hoyt Corkin, Gavin Smith, T.J. Cloutier, Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, or a zillion others. They are all highly talented and successful poker players, and undoubtedly a standard deviation or more above the population average in intelligence, but I see some much broader "smarts" in those on my smaller list. I would include Laak in that elite category, though I think he has less formal education (and less of the typical demeanor of those who have survived a PhD program) than most of the others.

Anyway, I try to read or watch anything about Laak that comes my way, because he always has something interesting to say. And the "Under the Gun" interview is no different. He introduces a term I hadn't heard before, one of his own coining:

"The best way to describe a hopelatron would be to imagine the middle earth soldier guys from Lord of the Rings. Collectively very strong, but from individual to individual very weak. None the less [sic; this new publication could seriously use a good copy editor], their strength is that there are so many of them. You are sure to take a beating from a hopelatron from time to time. Even thought [sic; see what I mean?] they can nail you in a hand, they are lifetime losers at poker. It is the hopelatrons that keep the pros in the money. Thank the good lord for each and every one of them. Basically it is a term of affection for all the army of weak players that comprise the poker universe."

I love that word. It has already eased the sting of a couple of bad beats I've received recently from their numbers. Just thinking of the Tolkienesque mass of the hopelatrons at poker tables all over the city is sufficiently amusing that it makes the inevitable occasional loss to one of them a tad more bearable.

The other amusing thing about him for discussion here is this story from the DVD (any errors in transcription are my own fault):

"I never feel that I can see the future. The only time in my life I saw the future was about six hours into Day 1 of the [World Series of Poker] Main Event last year, and I saw that I was winning the twelve million. It was really weird. I saw it. It was like I was prophetic, and it was as real as seeing, like, that table right there. It was so strange, and I was like, "Wow!" ... So two hands later, this guy enters the pot, and I went, "Wow," and I just knew that if I made a huge raise, he would have to fold. And I knew that if I made a huge raise and he re-raised I would be pot committed anyways if he had ace-king, so I decided to go all in. It was so smart a play. Except he had two kings and I had 8-3, and his kings held up handily, and I was eliminated from the tournament. So I've gone back to not seeing the future. It's a lot safer, y'know?"

Isn't it nice to know that even successful pros can make completely dumb-ass moves just like the rest of us?

The blue-chip Nazis

Final post today, I promise.

I usually play either $1-2 or $1-3 blinds no-limit hold'em, and in nearly every casino that means using $1 chips and $5 chips. (There are a few exceptions, such as Caesars, Red Rock, and Excalibur, which also use $2 chips, and Wynn with their notoriously confusing $3 chips. I dislike both arrangements. They're completely unnecessary and inefficient departures from the norm.)

I like keeping roughly 10 (between 5 and 15, anyway) $1 chips (which are usually blue, though sometimes white or gray or something else) in my stack. This allows me to tip cocktail waitresses and floormen as needed. More importantly, it allows me to make a bet of any size I want without having to verbally announce the amount. If I have no $1 chips and want to put in a bet of, say, $8, I would have to throw in two red chips ($5 each) while saying "make it eight." I want to keep silent during a hand as much as possible, and having a supply of $1 chips helps make this possible. If I have a big stack of blue because of winning a pot that contained lots of them, I use them to pay my blinds and make small calls. Then when my blues have been whittled down to about ten, I use red chips for those purposes so that I get a bit of change, and thus keep my blue stack between 5 and 15.

The dealers have a little problem, as chips from the table gradually get squirrelled away in the drop box: Because the rake on these games is usually between $1 and $4, they run out of the $1 periodically and have to call for a refill from the cashier. This process slows down the game. As a result, some dealers are highly protective of their tray full of blues.

One Hilton dealer is almost funny in how consistently she will decline to let players get change for their red chips when they request it. Once I saw her tell a player she couldn't make change because she was almost out of blues. Then, a few minutes later, after she had gotten her tray restocked with blues, the same player asked again, and this time she said, "I can't, because I just got a fill." The absurdity of her logic made me laugh out loud, though I'm pretty sure she had no clue what I found so funny.

I'm inspired to write about this today because during this afternoon's session at the Palms, I was faced with two consecutive dealers who openly resented my blue-chip practice. With both of them, I had about 5 blues, yet tried to pay a blind with a $5 chip. Each one of them looked at my stack and said, "You still have some ones there. You can use those" (or words to that effect). It was obvious that they were trying to minimize the number of blue chips they gave out in change. They were like mother birds defending the eggs in their nest from predators.

But here's the crazy thing: The way I do this makes no difference whatsoever in the overall flow of the $1 chips from the cashier to the dealer's tray to the table to the drop box. The net rate of loss is exactly the same no matter how many blue chips any player keeps in front of him, as long as each player is more or less consistent over time. If I keep approximately 10 at all times, the dealer will have to get a fill exactly as often as if I started out with 50 of them and kept that number all the time, or started with zero and tried to keep as few of them as possible at all times (as I've seen some players do). It's the net flow that determines how often the dealer will have to stop the game for a fill, not the number of blue chips sitting on the table.

Of course, if I and/or other players for some reason really liked hoarding blue chips, and continuously put in red ones in order to get blue ones in change, that would quickly deplete the dealer's tray. But even then, after a while the whole system would simply reach a new point of equilibrium. From that point on, the rate of loss from the dealer's tray would be precisely the same as it usually is. The only way to change the overall dynamic would be if there were no red chips in play, and thus no need ever to make any change. But with the size of pots in these games, that's obviously impractical; the dealer would lose far more time counting chips in large bets than is currently lost with getting occasional fills.

So I'll continue my peculiar (but not irrational) little habit of defending a stack of about 10 blue chips. Fortunately, the vast majority of dealers either understand what I'm doing, or don't notice, or don't care one way or the other; they just make change from a $5 chip when I need it, without comment. And I'll continue to chuckle at and be baffled by the occasional dealer who acts like a blue-chip miser, unwilling to part with any unless absolutely necessary. It's dumb, but it's also pretty harmless, and it's usually over in 30 minutes, when the next one sits down, and I can go back to my usual pattern.

Addendum, 7/30/07: I liked the phrase from the first comment to this post so much that I stole it to make a new title.

"You don't like me, do you?"

If you haven't read the post below ("Good bluff,") read it first, because this story is sort of a continuation of it. It involves the same opponent, maybe 30 minutes after the hand described in that post.

I'm in the big blind with pocket kings. The same player as previously described is in middle position and raises to $25. This immediately conveys some useful information, because he raises frequently, but in virtually every previous case it had been to either $15 or $20, not $25. Instantly the most likely cards he's holding are pocket jacks, maybe pocket queens or tens, because those are hands that are really difficult to play after the flop, which induces many, many players to put in unusually large raises before the flop in the hopes of not having to make any difficult decisions later in the hand.

(Strategy note: It is virtually always a mistake to vary the size of an opening pre-flop raise according to the strength of the hand with which you're raising. This is true whether you make the variance direct [i.e., weaker hands get smaller raises, and the strongest hands get the biggest raises], or inverse [smaller raises with the biggest hands, hoping to get several callers to build a big pot; bigger raises with junk hands because you don't want to get called]. It's fine to vary the size of the raise based on position and number of people who have already limped in ahead of you, but it is never wise to relate the raise size to the cards you're holding. Experienced players will pick up on any such pattern very readily, and you thereby give away a ton of information about what you're holding.)

One other player in late position calls the $25. I reraise to $90. My goal is either to win the pot right now ($50 profit is fine with me), or get it down to one opponent. I predict that the original raiser will call, both because of what I suspect he's holding and because I think he still wants to get back at me for the previous hand in which we tangled. I'm right--he calls, the other guy folds.

The strange thing is that before he calls, he looks at me and says, "You don't like me, do you?" As always, I say nothing and don't look at him directly.

So before the flop there is just over $200 in the pot already. I have maybe $215 left in front of me, which means that any reasonably strong bet I make at this pot after the flop commits such a high percentage of my chips that I might as well throw the whole stack in. What's more, I know that I'm going to bet at this flop no matter what comes. I really hope there's not an ace, because it would be just my luck that my opponent is sitting on an A-K. But even if there is an ace, it's still more likely that his hand does not have an ace (because of the size of his original raise), so I'm going to bet anyway. I'm confident he doesn't have pocket aces, because he didn't re-raise me before the flop, and because he looked in genuine discomfort when putting in the rest of the $90. I have to act first, and I certainly don't want to check the flop and let him check behind, thus getting another free card to catch some sort of straight or flush to beat me. All my money is going in, no matter what.

Given this unusual situation, I decide to pull a move that I use only rarely. After the dealer has verified that my first opponent put in the right amount for a call, and the second player has folded, I announce, "I'm all-in in the dark." Because I'm going to do move all-in anyway, there are some advantages to doing it before I see the flop. First, I can't give away any information about whether I like the flop by my voice or how long I hesitate before acting or how I push in the chips or anything else. Second, it just screams of extreme strength. Any experienced player will conclude that I probably have pocket aces, because I'm announcing, "I can win this hand without any help from the flop." In the event that he has A-K and an ace comes on the flop, I will have pre-planted in his mind a grave concern that that ace helps me more than it helps him.

Indeed, this guy says as much as soon as I make that declaration: "Crap, he's got the aces." The flop is 8-4-3, all clubs. This is a bit scary, since I'm not holding a club. But it's too late to take it back, and, besides, he's extremely unlikely to have made a flush. If he has a flush draw, that gives him more ways to win than he would otherwise have, but I'm still a big statistical favorite.

He thinks for a while, making assorted comments. He says to the player next to him, "This guy (meaning me) really doesn't like me." But he finally calls. He has the black jacks. The turn and river cards don't help him, and I scoop a $600 pot.

It's this business about me not liking him that prompts this grump. I can't figure it out. I haven't made a single hostile comment, action, gesture, or facial expression towards him. I don't think we've exchanged any words at all, but if we did, it was just some bit of small talk. What on earth makes him conclude that I don't like him personally? I'm just playing the hand to the best of my ability, in the way that I hope will maximize my profit. I would play it the same way against anybody else on whom I had the same information as I have about this guy. From my point of view, my actions are utterly dispassionate and impersonal. As they say, it's just poker. I'm just playing the game. I'm not out to hurt him. I have done not a single thing to target him specifically; it was just random chance that we got involved in two big pots in a fairly short time frame.

Moreover, what makes him care whether I like him or not? Is that really why he sits down at a poker table--to be liked by the other players? I'm sure that poker is primarily a social experience for many recreational players, but they're usually found in home games, or $2-4 limit games, where not much money is at stake, and the wins and losses tend to come slowly. That kind of motivation doesn't usually drive one to play in cutthroat no-limit games, where the object is to try to take every last cent of every other player's money. The mere fact of sitting down in a no-limit game announces that your intention is to take everybody else's money as quickly, efficiently, coldly, and ruthlessly as you can. Of course, you can do that while being friendly and affable and having a good time, but surely nobody is under any illusions about the real motive here: it's money, pure and simple.

Oh well. If this guy thinks that I dislike him (I don't; I have very little information on whether he would be an interesting or enjoyable person to spend time with outside of a poker room) and that, as a result, I'm targeting him, he will necessarily conclude that when I bet into him, I'm doing it with lesser hands than what I might use to go after other pots. That will induce him to make mistakes of calling or raising when he's behind, as happened here. So, my friend, if you want to believe--for whatever reasons your fevered imagination has contrived--that I don't like you, go right ahead. I'm not going to lift a finger or say a word to convince you otherwise.

But it isn't true, and even if it were true, a psychologically healthy and mature player wouldn't give a rip about it either way.

Oh, and thanks for the money!

"Good bluff"

More from today's Palms $1-2 no-limit hold'em session.

I realize that hand histories, in isolation, are pretty boring. I'm going to walk you though this one, because there is actually a point to be made at the end.

A guy in middle position open-raised for $20. I was the only caller in the small blind, with 9-9. The flop was 3-8-J rainbow.

I already know that if my opponent started with unpaired hole cards, he will only hit a pair or better on the flop about once in every three times (32.4%, to be exact), so even knowing nothing more than that, chances are that I'm ahead here. The fact that two of the flop cards are little ones makes that even more likely. I had already pegged this guy as a pretty good player, though a little more aggressive than he can really handle (i.e., I had seen him get in over his head and not get away from a pot when should have known he was beat). That made me pretty confident that he would bet if I checked. I wasn't really planning a check-raise, because I needed more information before committing a lot of money to this pot. I wanted to see what I could learn from how and how much he bet.

Sure enough, he fired out $50. Now this was a bit odd--I hadn't seen him overbet the pot before. The size of that bet plus everything about how he made it (fast, emphatically, looking right at me in sort of an intimidating way) shouted, "I want you out of this hand right now." He absolutely did not want a call there. So, naturally, I called, based on the truism that you should always do the opposite of what an opponent wants you to do. He gave me a very quizzical look, and said kind of condescendingly, "Are you serious?"

The turn card is a 4, which almost surely didn't help him. Although I think I'm ahead at this point, I don't have enough confidence in that conclusion yet to build a big pot. I suspect that my call on the flop has alarmed him. To test that hypothesis, I check again, and sure enough, he checks behind me. There is no way this guy would check here if he had an overpair to the board, had a jack in his hand for top pair, or had hit a set. This pretty much seals my conclusion that my measly nines are the best at this point. Just about the only hand that he could plausibly be holding that would have me beat is pocket tens. Now as long as no big card comes that might pair him (I think he has something like A-K or A-Q), I should be in good shape.

Another 3 hits on the river. Again, this is extremely unlikely to have helped him. So I bet $75 into an approximately $140 pot. He asks me a couple of questions, which I ignore. He thinks a while, then folds.

As he tosses his cards in, he says, "Good bluff."

It is that remark that leads me into this grumpy rant. It's not the first time I've heard this, but I hate it every time, so I need to say something about it.

The most obvious response is that if you really think that your opponent is bluffing, then you should be calling or raising, not folding. There is an incredible discordance between your actions and what you claim you're thinking when you say "Good bluff" while folding. Actions speak louder than words, so what's apparent is that you do not really believe that it was a bluff. Which means that you're lying--and it's not even a good lie, but one that is revealed as such to everybody watching even as you speak it. It's stupid.

There are, I think, two main reasons that people say this in such a situation. First, it soothes the ego by covering all the bases. If it really was a bluff, the person can tell himself that he "knew it" (though obviously he really didn't), and if it wasn't a bluff, he can reassure himself that he made a good laydown.

The second motivation is to try to goad the other player into showing his cards, to prove that it was not a bluff. In this instance, I had actually planned to show him my hand, because I was still fairly new to the table and wanted to establish that I was playing in a pretty solid manner. But because I suspect that one of this guy's reasons for saying "Good bluff" was to annoy me into proving him wrong, I decided instead to frustrate him by not showing, and leave him wondering. That's my little retaliation for the smarmy comment.

Personally, I think a much better way to get a look at an opponent's hand in a situation like this is to fold face-up, especially if you add a "nice hand" kind of comment with it. That's a pretty clear friendly invitation. I will usually, though not always, respond kindly to an opponent taking that tack, and show. In battle, when an opponent surrenders, you don't keep shooting. The face-up fold is far classier than the sniping little "Nice bluff," as a means of trying to see what your opponent beat you with. Tit for tat. Nice begets nice. Nastiness begets nastiness.

I guess the reason that it irritated me more than usual today is that, given the situation, it was so obviously not a bluff. I think any knowledgeable, experienced player who had watched the hand play out, not having seen the hole cards, would be highly confident that I had the best hand at the end, even before the other guy's fold. His betting pattern was one of weakness, while mine was one of cautious strength. If my opponent had been unsure of where he stood and asked me, as he folded, "Were you bluffing me?" I would have shown him my cards and said, "No, I think I had the best of it." No taunts or insults, just friendly honesty about the situation.

Instead, he choose to be bitchy and egotistical about it. So, in return, he got no information and scored no points for good sportsmanship. It's a loser thing to say in every situation.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease at the Palms (non-grumpy content)

I was waiting for my turn at the table at the Palms today when a series of unusually surprised and enthusiastic uproars came from a nearby table. I stepped over to see what had happened. It was A-A versus 10-10. I don't know how the betting went down, because it was all over by the time I joined the commotion. But it was obvious from how fast the last two cards came that they got it all in after the flop, if not before. Anyway, the underdog had caught a 10 on the flop for a set, then the aces made their own set on the turn. But the biggest explosion from the players had come when the underdog hit his one-outer for quad tens on the river.

Then the controversy came up. The Palms had had a bad-beat jackpot, a promotion that ended five days ago. A sign on the wall said something like "We no longer have a bad-beat jackpot. The money that was collected will be redistributed through another exciting promotion to be announced soon." Four of a kind beating aces full of tens would have qualified for the jackpot, were the promotion still running.

For the next hour or so, the guy who had lost (and subsequently stopped playing) kept coming in to the room and talking to the other people who had been at the table, including Mr. Quads. He was saying that he was going to talk to everybody in the casino management that he could, in an effort to get them to give them the jackpot money. He was trying to enlist the support of the other players, because the jackpot distribution would have given a share to everybody at the table.

I was kind of annoyed at having to hear this guy tell his loser story over and over and over again, and repeat over and over and over again how unfair it was that they had ended the promotion without giving away the money they had collected, etc. I was too polite to say it, but I was thinking, "Fat chance, buddy. They ended the promotion, and that's that. No way you're going to pry that money out of them. They're going to use it to seed something else, period."

To my great surprise, the Palms proved me wrong. Eventually, the poker room shift manager came to the table with an announcement: She had gotten approval to distribute the money in the jackpot fund just as if the promotion were still running. It took well over an hour for all the paperwork and accounting to get done, but the loser of the hand walked away with over $4000; Mr. Quads got about $2300 (though he sadly had to relinquish the $82 he had received as a high-hand bonus!), and the other people who had been at the table each got $411.

I guess it does pay to make a little noise! If it had been me, I probably would have just shrugged my shoulders at the double bad luck (losing the hand plus just missing the bad-beat payout) and walked away, assuming that nothing more could or would be done about it.

Incidentally, this was my first time playing at the Palms. I not only had a highly profitable session (up $543 in less than 3 hours), but found it an enjoyable, comfortable place to play. I expect I'll be making it a more frequent stop in my gallavanting around. I also got to meet Murph, a poker dealer whose blog I have perused and enjoyed from time to time (http://murph4qs.blogspot.com/). I found it through the blog of a Flamingo poker dealer who I have gotten to know a bit through his frequent play at the Hilton (see http://pkrdlr.blogspot.com/).

Another celebrity sighting (sans photo)

I was playing poker at the Palms this afternoon, when somebody at the table looked up at the poker desk and said, "It's Macy Gray," and chuckled.

I have to admit that I've heard of Macy Gray, even seen her sing once or twice on TV shows, but didn't care for her music, so paid very little attention. I wouldn't know her if I passed her on the street.

The woman at the counter did resemble my vague recollection of what Macy Gray looked like, but so would a thousand other people. So I couldn't tell whether the other guy was really identifiying her, or just joking that it was somebody that sort of looked like Macy Gray. I wasn't paying much attention to what was going on there, but a few minutes later, the poker room staff was doing something a little out of the ordinary for this woman, and another player at the table sniffed, "Celebrity treatment." She also was accompanied by a guy who looked suspiciously like a bodyguard. Furthermore, we had heard less than an hour earlier that Paris Hilton was at that very moment checking into the hotel, planning to attend a performance by Fergie at the Palms tonoght. So all this made me think that maybe it really was Ms. Gray.

I was less than ten feet away, so I scanned her a bit for some distinguishing feature that I could later check against Macy Gray photographs. I found one quickly: A lacy tattoo that looked like a bracelet around her right wrist.

Got home and checked a Google image search for Macy Gray. And whaddayaknow--they show her with just such a tattoo. So I guess it really was her. My claim to fame today is that Macy Gray took the seat at the table that became available when I left.

Celebrity sighting (non-grumpy content)

Once again, apologies for the poor resolution on wide angle on my cheapo cell phone camera. It may be a bit hard to tell, but that's actor Michael J. Anderson, in the background, checking in at the poker desk at the Hilton last night. He's been in lots of movies and TV shows, but is most famous for playing the red-suited, backwards-talking, dancing dwarf in "Twin Peaks," 1990-1991. He was seated at another table, so I didn't get to talk to or play with him. However, I'm told that this is the second session he has put in here this week, so I may get to see him again soon. Amazingly, he looks just like he did during "Twin Peaks"--that is, he absolutely does not look 17 years older than then. It's like he's frozen in time.

Addendum, 8/10/07: Mr. Anderson was playing poker at the Hilton again last night. While he was waiting for a table, he kindly allowed me to snap a much better picture of him, and chatted with me for a few minutes about David Lynch movies. He got seated at a different table from me, so I still don't know how well he plays. But he's very kind to strangers.

This post for men only!

OK, well, women can read it, too, but only if you have a lot of nose and ear hair.

So now that it's down to just us people with nose/ear hair problems, let's talk frankly, shall we? I have no idea why, with age, we start losing hair where we've traditionally had and wanted it, and start growing hair in all sorts of places that we're not used to having it. None of us asked for this, but it's the way things are, so we have to deal with reality.

And the reality is this: Nose hair and ear hair are just gross. Nobody wants to be seeing it on you--or, more precisely, coming out of you.

What does this have to do with poker? Well, at the poker table we are crowded together unnaturally and uncomfortably. We have to look at each other to chat, to see who is doing what, to watch facial expressions and gain information, etc. If you're across the room from me, the thick, black, gnarly stuff sprouting from your facial orifices probably won't be within the gradually fading resolution of my vision (although, let's face it, there are some guys who could get theirs to floor length without much effort). But when you're shoulder-to-shoulder with me, my view of your face is about as good as Cary Grant had of George Washington's in "North by Northwest."

And I don't want to be seeing what you've got going on there.

You get a haircut once in a while, right? You shave at least a few days a week, right? So what has motivated you to decide to just let nature take its ugly course when it comes to the nose and ears? (And if you're one of the Eyebrow People, let's throw that area in for good measure here, too, though it falls more into the category of "weird" than "disgusting.")

Hey, I'm right there with you. About the time I turned 40, some bizarre biological switch was thrown, and out the stuff came. I actually have to eat twice as much as I used to, because my body is now expending so much energy on growing unwanted hair everywhere. But I deal with it, y'know?

If you don't already know what to do or where to turn, I highly recommend ordering yourself one of these bad boys: http://www.sharperimage.com/us/en/catalog/productdetails/sku__SI679COB . I've had mine for six or seven years now, and it's going as strong as ever. It's fast, powerful, painless, and effective. About two minutes once a week and you're good to go. You'll wonder why you ever fussed with dainty little scissors or the dreadful prospect of plucking. (Of course, if you're one of the ones I'm addressing, maybe you never bothered trying those first steps.) There's really just no excuse not to.

Guys, I'm just telling it like it is: Nobody, NOBODY wants to see you looking like you just snorted up the clippings from a barbershop floor. And (WARNING: potentially nausea-inducing observation coming up in this sentence; avert your eyes if you are sensitive) we really, really don't want to see the stuff that gets tangled and matted in your little bushes after you blow your nose. If you see what I mean.

So please take care of business, men. I'd sincerely rather never have to address this subject again.

Wait until the action is complete, please

In limit games, the amount of every bet and raise is fixed by the structure of the game. Because verbal declarations of intent are binding, when a player says "raise," he must put in a raise, and it must be exactly the amount that the rules specify. The word "raise," therefore, determines what his action is on the hand, and the next player can safely and properly proceed with his own decision.

But in no-limit games, which is what I usually play, there's a crucial difference: a raise can be any amount between a defined minimum and all the chips that a player has in front of him. If he says "Raise to $20," or something like that, then that has the same effect as if he said nothing and pushed out $20 in chips. Either way, his decision for that turn is over, and the next player in line can act.

Lately, though, I've seen a lot of no-limit players muck their cards as soon as they hear the player on their right say the word "raise," even though no amount has been declared. This is in violation of the rules, because it isn't their turn yet. And, yes, it matters.

Suppose I'm one to the right of the button, and the first player to act after the flop puts in a bet. Everybody folds to me. I want to raise. My problem is that I don't know whether I'm going to have one opponent to deal with or two, because the guy on my left (with the button) hasn't acted yet. If I say raise, and he immediately throws his cards away, my decision just got easier. I might now put in a larger raise than I otherwise would have, because I know it's easier to get one opponent to fold than to get both of two opponents to fold. Or, alternately, I might put in a smaller raise than I otherwise would have, because I have a hand I want to play against just one opponent, and I was originally planning to raise enough to persuade the button to fold. Now, however, since I know he's folding, I want to coax the first-position bettor to call my very strong hand, so I can put in an irresistably small raise.

Either way, I have gained important information that I can use to make my decision, and it's information that I shouldn't have.

(There's an exception to the rule here. If, because everybody else has already folded, you are going to be the last person to act on the raise that has been announced, and you won't be calling even a minimal raise, then there is no problem with the insta-muck. This situation, however, will essentially only arise before the flop when it's down to the two blinds.)

Unfortunately, dealers tend to be pretty lax about enforcing this. My limited experience is that most players who commit this violation simply haven't thought about the implications, and once they understand how it distorts the rightful play of the game, they stop doing it.

So, dealers, could you please be more aggressive at putting an end to this? Every time it goes uncorrected, other players may notice, decide that it's perfectly OK, and start doing it themselves.

Addendum, August 30, 2007:

I’m watching an old episode of the World Poker Tour, specifically the first Mandalay Bay tournament from season 5, which I hadn't seen before. I was surprised to see this exact situation occur, and become the topic of discussion among both the players and the commentators.

Players are Brad Booth, Joe Tehan, and Burt Boutin.

Tehan has A-K and raises under the gun.

Boutin calls with A-Q.

Booth attempts a squeeze play with 10-2, and re-raises.

The action is back to Tehan, who announces “I raise,” and puts out chips to call Booth’s re-raise. He hasn’t yet decided on the amount of his raise.

Boutin apparently makes an honest mistake, thinking that the chips Tehan has put out are the raise. He presumably doesn’t care how much the raise is--he’s getting out. He folds and stands up from the table.

Tehan makes a face and says something I can’t hear, because over his words Vince Van Patten is saying, “Look at this, Burt has folded. He’s up out of his seat like a Pop Tart.”

Booth says, “You’re always supposed to wait for the amount to be raised there, Burt.”

Mike Sexton: “Brad makes a good point there.”

Boutin: “Oh, I thought he said raise and he raised it.” Apparently at this instant he realizes that the chips Tehan put out were just the call of Booth’s re-raise. “Oh, I didn’t see, I’m sorry.”

Sexton: “Joe said raise, and as soon as he said that Burt mucked his hand. But it makes a big difference. Does a guy raise the minimum raise? Does he move all in? He can bet any amount he wants there. You’re supposed to let him complete his bet before you fold your hand.”

The hand finishes playing out as Booth folds.

Sexton: “But the point is well made, though. You know, when you’re in a game, even if you know you’re going to fold your hand, courtesy dictates that you wait till your opponent make [sic] his raise before you muck your hand.”

Van Patten: “No doubt about it, and Burt knows that, but Burt just made a mistake there, and he apologized for it. So it does happen at the table. Burt, a veteran of the poker world, apologizes—no harm, no foul.”

A whistle???

Just when you think you've seen it all....

At the Hilton today, a stupid argument broke out between two players. I wasn't involved in the hand, but here's what happened. After the river card was dealt, Player A went all-in, and pushed all his stacks of chips forward. Player B said, "I call," without pushing his chips forward.

Now, this is perfectly acceptable. It's how I usually do it, too. It's time-saving to just find out who won, and then settle up who owes whom, and how much. The guy who called even turned over his cards first as he announced his call, though he had every right to wait and see his opponent's hole cards first.

Player A hears the announcement of the call and sees B's cards. He knows he's beat. Player A is an older Asian guy who is usually silent, but every once in a while he flies off the handle about something--and it's always something incredibly trivial. When he does, he yells as loud as anybody in a poker room ever gets, and it's essentially impossible to understand what he's saying, because of a thick accent, and because his voice jumps way up into the little-girl-soprano register when he's upset.

That's what happened in this instance. He was mad because B didn't push his chips forward. By the rules, this makes no difference whatsoever, as B calmly tried to point out to him, once the shouting started. B said, with complete sincerity and plausibility, "If I had lost, I'd pay up." Of course he would--the casino would see to that, even if he refused (something I've never seen happen, by the way). But that didn't stop the ruckus. Player A's gripe was completely meritless and stupid, and was obviously just the result of being mad at losing a really big pot.

After 15 or 20 seconds of this nonsense, a guy sitting between A and B pulled out a referee's whistle and blew it--hard. You know how loud those things can be in a confined space like a small poker room. It was ear-splitting.

Ken, the shift supervisor, came over to the whistler, and told him calmly but firmly, "If you ever do that in this room again, you will be asked to leave." Mr. Whistle protested that he couldn't stand the stupid argument. Well, buddy, none of the rest of us could, either, but we didn't resort to a whistle!

It was truly one of the strangest moments in my poker experiences. I can't say I liked or approved of the technique, but it was instantly effective at terminating a pointless, annoying, and time-consuming argument.

By the skin of my teeth (non-grumpy content)

Poker blogs that mostly revolve around the writer's personal poker results and hands are, in my experience, deathly dull, so I've tried to avoid telling stories that are of no importance to any larger point. But once in a while something so unusual happens in a poker hand that I just have to tell the tale.

Played at the Hilton again today. One opponent is Paul. He's one I like having at the table, because he's friends with lots of people, and he's always having fun, win or lose. I pride myself on never gloating when I win and never whining when I lose, and the same can be said of Paul. And, truth be told, I also like having him there because he's still relatively new to the game, and I've gotten the best of him most of the times we've tangled in big pots. It's critical to today's story that I have seen him overbet and overvalue good-but-not-great hands on many occasions. That said, he plays quite a bit looser than I tend to, which means that there's always potential danger lurking, because he can have hole cards that I wouldn't expect him to be playing.

I'm in middle position, limp in with 9-10 offsuit. Paul is in the small blind, and raises to $12. 9-10 certainly isn't a great hand, but I'll have position on him after the flop, so I decide to go for the ride. I know that I can just throw it away with minimal damage if things don't develop favorably.

The flop is J-Q-K with two spades. I flopped a straight! I have the second nuts; the only hand that can be ahead of me at this point is A-10. Now, I immediately recognize that Paul could easily have an A-10. On the other hand, there's a wide range of hands with which he might have raised before the flop, so I'm not very worried about being behind.

Paul has checked in the dark, as is his custom when he's first to act. I put in a bet that's nearly the size of the pot, to make it unprofitable for him to try to make a flush, in case he is sitting on two spades. To my surprise, Paul raises me. I'm instantly worried that he does, in fact, have the A-10, and is trying to push me off of a spade draw. Still, I know Paul's manner of play well enough to know that he could put in a raise here with two pair or three of a kind, and certainly any two-pair or trips hands he could have with this flop would explain the pre-flop raise. He might even raise me here with A-K, though that seems less likely. So I conclude that I'm still reasonably safe with my straight.

It would make no sense to just call and see what develops, because my hand is already as good as it's likely to get, but if he has one of those six other hands, he could easily improve to a full house, and I don't want to be putting big money in with a straight after he hits a full house, if he's going to. So...

I re-reraise him. He waits only about 3 seconds before pushing all-in. Uh-oh. But my previous reasoning is, I think, still valid: Paul would certainly do this with several hands that he could plausibly be holding other than the A-10. Maybe I'm beat, but it's not often as a hold'em player that you flop the second nuts and have a less-experienced opponent betting into you. I decide that I'm ahead of six out of the seven hands he could have here (3 ways of making two pair, and 3 ways of making three of a kind), and behind only one of them, so I have to go for it. I call his all-in.

As I flip up my cards I say, "I've got the second nuts. I'm just hoping you don't have A-10." He smiles and turns over--I know you're all way ahead of me here--the A-10. I have no spades, so I can't make a flush. This means that I cannot win this hand outright, no matter what cards come on the turn and river. The best I can do is split it with him if an ace comes, which would then mean that we both have the same ace-high straight. I'm drawing to 3 cards in the deck just to get my half of the money back! That's about as bad a spot as one can get onesself into in poker.

The turn card is another spade, giving Paul a flush draw, though that doesn't really matter, because he's already holding the ace of spades, so if no ace comes on the river, I can't much care whether I lose to just a higher straight or to a flush. The $300 I had sitting in front of me is just as gone either way.

The dealer puts out the river card. It's an ace. Paul and I both have the Broadway straight, and we split the pot. We actually each lost about $2 on the hand, because of the casino's rake of the pot. But you can be sure that I was delighted to have that outcome. Paul, to his credit, didn't whine or complain or yell or swear or stomp his feet. He just shook his head.

By coincidence, a couple of hours later we were both leaving at the same time. I told him that somewhere there is kept an invisible log of poker results not as they actually played out, but as they by all rights should have happened, and in that alternate-reality log book, I owe him $300. He was gracious as always. He told me that he was saying to himself, "Finally, FINALLY, I got him where I wanted him"--and then I slipped out of it! A perfectly understandable sentiment, given our history. And it's basically inevitable that sooner or later he will nail me for a big pot, if we play together long enough, because that's the nature of the game. But today wasn't the day for it.

Addendum, August 16, 2007:

Paul took almost $100 off of me two days ago. By strange coincidence, I had 9-10 again, this time in hearts. The flop paired my 9 and gave me a flush draw, too. It got checked around. The turn was an offsuit 10, giving me two pair and the flush draw. Paul bet, and I liked my hand enough to move all-in. He had pocket tens, and had made a set with the card that made my two pair. Oops! I didn't hit the flush, and he won, quite deservedly--he was ahead every step of the way. Nice hand, Paul. You got me good there, and this time I couldn't slip out of the net.

The drunk cop

Here's a story from last October that I wrote up and emailed to a friend.

At the Hilton today there was a guy that, by coincidence, had been at my table at the Orleans last night. He’s terrible as a poker player. He didn’t seem too drunk last night, but this afternoon he was reeking and reeling, and barely coherent. Because he recognized me, he acted as if we were best friends, particularly since the only open seat was on his immediate right. While I was trying to focus on the game, he kept trying to engage me in conversation about work, about sports, about blackjack, whatever. At one point he nudges me and shows me a badge—he’s a cop from Tulsa, Oklahoma. I have no idea why he thought that I would be impressed.

Anyway, I’m in the small blind with Q-8, a pretty worthless hand, but nobody raises, so I toss in the extra $1 to see the flop—and it has two more 8s in it! There are no straight or flush draws possible, so I can safely slow-play it. I check, somebody bets $5, which several people call, building the pot nicely. I’m salivating.

Turn card is another blank, but it’s the second of one of the suits, so I think I’d better take the pot on this round of betting rather than risk somebody catching a flush on the river. Still, I’m first to act, and confident that somebody will bet at it and I can raise, so I start off just checking. Drunk Cop surprises me by betting $15. It gets folded around to an Asian guy two seats to my right, who is sitting behind several hundred dollars in chips. He looks at Drunk Cop and says, “I’ll put you all in,” which means that he’s raising—betting whatever amount Drunk Cop has in front of him. The dealer counts D.C.’s chips, and it’s $59, so Asian Guy pushes out $59. I can barely keep from slobbering. “I’m all-in,” I say. D.C. looks at me as if I’ve just insulted him or something, but he pushes all his chips in. Asian Guy clearly doesn’t like this development—he had obviously assumed that his big raise would push everybody else out and it would be just him vs. D.C. But he calls my all-in reraise. We show our hands, and Asian guy has 2 pairs. D.C. has the last 8, but only a deuce kicker versus my queen kicker. The river card doesn’t change anything, and I take down the whole stinkin’ pot. It’s the kind of hand that I wait hours for, and makes all the difference in whether it’s a winning or losing day.

But the weird thing is that after it’s all over, D.C. starts whining to me about what I did. “Come on, you know I’m a cop, you know I don’t make much money. You didn’t have to play it that hard. You could have gone just a little easy on me.” He is dead serious. And he keeps it up. “Why did you have to do that? You make enough as it is. [I have no idea how he thinks he knows what my income is.] I can’t afford to be losing this much.”

Well tough cookies, dude. Excuse me, but weren’t *you* trying to take *my* money with your bet? What in the hell is unfair about me turning the tables on you? You took a chance, I took a chance. You might have had 8-K and beaten my 8-Q, or you might have had a full house instead of just trips. I knew that, and gambled that I was ahead, and I was right. You thought you were ahead, and you were wrong. How in the hell does that make me the bad guy here? And what am I supposed to do—check every player’s 1040 forms before deciding how hard to try to play against him? Ask whether he can really afford to be playing poker? Bite me, you weirdo! What an idiot.

Of course, I don’t say any of that. I just say, “Hey, it’s a game. I try to play it the best I can. I’m not trying to hurt you, you just got stuck with a hand that was second-best. I’m sure you wouldn’t have folded if you had been in my position. And if you had turned out to have the best hand, I’d have said, ‘Nice hand,’ and moved on.” I am intensely conscious *not* to apologize in any manner. Fortunately, right about then another seat opened up, and I moved away from him. Later, I caught the dealer on a break and asked if she had overheard that. She said, “Oh yeah, the guy playing the sympathy card? That was seriously weird. I wonder if he expected you to give his money back or something.” Who knows?

The poker threat

I'm glad that it's rare that I hear actual threats of bodily harm at the poker table. But I'm puzzled that once or twice a week I hear a poker threat. These take many forms, but the most common are warnings like this: "You just keep playing that way, pal--it'll catch up to you." "Next time you raise my blind I'm going all-in on you." "I'm going to let you have this one, but I will bust you before we're done."

Last week I cracked a guy's pocket kings with sneaky little suited connectors that hit the flop just right. As I stacked up his chips, he said, "I'll be coming at you to get those back." There was not a trace of levity in his voice or demeanor.

I don't get this. Well, actually, I do, in a sense: It's purely about ego. A player who lost a hand or was forced to fold takes it as a personal affront to his dignity, and makes that kind of stupid comment to repair the psychic damage. But what I may never understand is why people let their egos get caught up in whether they win or lose a hand.

It's just not possible to win every hand in poker. It's not even possible to win every hand that you contest all the way. All that matters is that, over the long run, you win more money than you lose. That might mean giving up a lot of small pots in exchange for winning a few big ones, or, if you're a "small ball" kind of player, winning a bunch of little pots but reducing your chances of winning a huge one. Nobody keeps track of the number of pots won, because it simply doesn't matter.

So why do people take it as some sort of dent to the ego when they lose or have to lay one down? That fact is not a comment on one's worth as a human being, or skill as a poker player. It's just part of the game.

The poker threat doesn't intimidate any sensible opponent. It only accomplishes a few things, all of them bad for you: (1) It tells everybody at the table that you can't play dispassionately, that your fragile self-image is, in essence, put into the pot along with your chips on every hand. Any smart player will recognize this as a huge leak in your game, because you will do things like make bad calls to avoid the agony of being bluffed, or just to show that you can't be pushed around; you'll loosen your play in frustration, trying to give yourself more chances to get lucky, which will spew more chips to your opponents. (2) It changes your future play for the worse, because now you'll feel some weird obligation to carry through on your threat, targeting somebody who may be a better player or who is just on an unusally lucky streak--to your detriment. (3) It sours the previously light, friendly mood at the table. (4) If the opponent you threaten really was playing stupidly, it just might smarten him up enough that he'll play better, making those chips that much harder to win back.

You pay these steep prices all for the sake of a little phony self-soothing when your poor, delicate ego has been bruised. What a rotten trade-off.

So don't be an egotistical idiot (unless, of course, you're on national TV, in which case it might make for good viewing). Keep the threats to yourself.

You can't help another player--is this concept too difficult?

Hilton today. I'm in a pot against an inexperienced player I've never seen before. I have pocket 8s, both red. There is a pre-flop raise, which I and several others call. The flop is 8-9-10 with two clubs. There's a bet. I make a large raise to push out anybody hoping to draw to a straight or flush. This new player is the only one who calls me. The turn card is an offsuit jack. Ick. I don't like that because of the obvious possible straight sitting out there. But the pot is now large enough that I decide to push all-in, crossing my fingers and hoping that he was on the club draw and didn't just make his straight. The guy thinks for quite a while, then calls. He has a few chips left over after the dealer makes the pot right. The river card is an off-suit 7, putting a jack-high straight on the board. There is no possible flush, so unless my opponent has a queen (which I think is pretty unlikely), we're going to split the pot.

I turn up my 8s. He looks at the cards and the board, gets a befuddled look on his face. It's obvious that he doesn't know what to do, but he's aware that everybody is looking at him to do something. Bizarrely, he grabs his remaining chips and pushes them forward. The dealer politely returns them to him and reminds him that I'm all-in and there is no more betting. He still looks confused.

At this point, I'm dearly hoping that he decides that my set of 8s has him beat, and he will just muck his hand face-down, relinquishing his half of the pot, so I can take the whole thing. I'm hyperalert to anybody talking to him, because I just know that some blabbermouth will feel obligated to help him in some way: tell him to turn his cards up, or point out that there is a straight on the board, or some such thing.

Sure enough, a woman at the far end starts to say, "There's a..."--and quick as a wink I cut her off, saying, "Please don't help him." The guy has still got the deer-in-the-headlights look, and he's looking at the dealer. Bless her, the dealer just tells him, "We're waiting for you, sir." Of course, if he asks what his options are, she can inform him that he can either turn his card face up or muck them face down, but she correctly does not offer even this much assistance, since he didn't ask.

Finally, he turns his cards up. Amazingly, he has 10-10. We had a set-over-set situation, in which I had the worst of it, and didn't know it. I thought the straight killed my winning hand, when, in fact, it saved me. The pot gets split.

I have no idea what this guy was thinking during that 30 or 45 seconds when he froze and didn't know what to do. But it doesn't matter.

The point here is the predictability that somebody would attempt to step in and help him. Folks, you just can't do that! Of course, it's possible that whatever that woman was going to say would have been innocuous and within the rules, but it's much more likely that she was going to say something that would have helped him make his decision (between tabling his cards face up and mucking them face down), and I wasn't going to let her. I really couldn't even wait to find out what she was going to say, because if I was right, the damage would have been done, and protesting after the fact wouldn't do much good.

After the hand was over, the guy next to me said, "She can tell him there's a straight on the board." No, she can't. Really the only things you can say about the hand while it's in progress are the pieces of information that are freely available to everybody: what the community cards are (in case somebody with poor vision can't make them out, for example), where the action is, what the amount of the last bet was, etc. Telling somebody that there is a straight on the board goes beyond that, into the realm of interpreteting the raw data of what the five cards are. That's helping (or at least potentially helping) a player who isn't paying attention. One player to a hand means no helping of that sort. This guy had the right to muck his hand if he wanted to, even if it would have been stupid to do so.

(Confession: I have twice mistakenly mucked the winning hand, and just last week accidentally forfeited my share of what would have been a 4-way split pot, by mucking--in each case because I misread the board. All my own fault. This guy must be allowed to make the same kind of mistake all by himself. It's part of the learning curve of poker to lose money because you screw up.)

Both the dealer and the other players are also forbidden to instruct another player to turn his cards face up. That's crossing the line from telling him what his options are--i.e., what he may do--to telling him what he should do. That territory is strictly off-limits. The dealer can tell him, if asked, that she can't award the pot to anybody while his cards remain live but face down. But she can't instruct him to turn them up any more than she can turn them up for him, because that is taking an important decision away from the player.

We all have a social impulse to be helpful. And that's a good thing in nearly every aspect of life. But the poker table is different. A player in a poker game has to fend for himself.

A few weeks ago in a Saturday Hilton tournament, we were down to just 6 or 7 players. A woman was trying to decide when to make a dash for a restroom break because she couldn't wait until the next scheduled break. A friend was pointing out to her when it might be most advantageous to go. Marc Nelson, the tournament director, correctly stopped her. The friend protested, "We're just talking about when to go to the bathroom!" But that was a decision with considerable strategic implications, given how big the blinds were and how fast they were coming around. He was absolutely right to stop that discussion.

Now, there are plenty of exceptions. Last week I was seated next to a woman who freely announced that it was her first time playing in a casino, and she'd appreciate help. I made sure the dealers knew this, because they're much more likely to give only the kind of help that is proper. Other players, unfortunately, in their zeal to be nice, tend to cross the line all too easily. For example, when this woman was faced with a large bet on the river, and there was 4 parts of a straight on the board, a player told her, "Don't call unless you can beat a straight." Well, that's just way more help than any player or dealer is allowed to give. After the hand, if it seems that she made a blunder and appears to welcome strategic advice, that's OK--but not during the hand. I was also happy to explain to her how the high-hand jackpots worked, why it's wise to cap one's cards, how to tell when it's her turn or whether she's in one of the blinds, etc. Those are all just pieces of general information, things that everybody is entitled to know, and things that the dealer would be happy to explain to her; I'm just in a position to do it more quickly and quietly, sitting next to her.

Unfortuantely, there are way too many players who don't understand the boundary between what can be said and what can't. If you're not absolutely certain, discretion is the better part of valor. Just keep it to yourself. The dealer will give a player needing help all that is allowed.

Mr. Destiny

Yesterday was an interesting day. It's the first time I have shelled out for the pay-per-view live feed from the World Series of Poker main event final table. I watched all 15+ hours of it.

It's hard to know for sure until we see the broadcast with the hole cards, but it looks like in Jerry Yang we've just crowned our most unskilled player ever as world champion. It appears that he's a far, far worse player than the other two relatively unprepared amateurs, Robert Varkonyi and Chris Moneymaker. I think that when those two won, they were both better players than I currently am, though they have taken licks from all around because they simply weren't in the same league as the poker world had become used to seeing in the title role. I'm no poker genius; I think I have a pretty good handle on where I am in the poker food chain, and it's just barely high enough to be a long-term winner at low-stakes games rather than a loser or a break-even player. I wouldn't consider myself a better player than anybody I saw at yesterday's final table, except for Jerry Yang.

So how did he win? Well, to hear him tell it, God ordained it to be so.

From early in the final table, when he was all-in with another player, he could be heard saying things like, "Lord, you have a destiny for me today," and "Father, I will use the money to glorify your name." He gave the Big Dealer in the Sky further credit in his closing interview with Norman Chad.

I have to wonder about this. Does God really care who wins poker tournaments? If so, does he actually make his picks not only during the course of the tournament, but right at the very moment that a hand is being played out? If not, then it would seem to me that entreaties made while waiting for the last cards to be dealt out are pretty useless; the deck has already acquired a particular arrangement, and that has already determined what cards will be coming. There would, then, seem to be little point in pleading to God to favor one person over another that late in the course of things.

And, by the way, does it really help your case to tell God what you plan to do with the money? That is, can an omnipotent being really be bought off with a bribe? Isn't he able to bring into existence all the money he might need to carry out whatever his plans are, without needing 10% of Jerry Yang's winnings? What if Yang's opponent at the same time promised God to donate, say, 20% of the prize money to noble charities, or to "glorifying God's name" (whatever that might mean)? Does he then decide on whose behalf to intervene based on who will be giving him the biggest cut? If so, then why didn't Barry Greenstein win, a guy who would have donated 100% of the money to children's charities? (Oh, I know: God hates Jews because they killed Jesus, right?)

Does Mr. Yang actually believe that if he says just the right prayer, God will miraculously change the order of the cards in the deck that the dealer is holding? This is just as nutty, frankly, as Shannon Elizabeth invoking the "law of attraction" in an attempt to make it more likely that cards favorable to her will be dealt out (which absurdity was shown clearly on NBC's "Heads-Up Poker Championship"). And if God really does step in in this manner, it seems to me that it's a pretty clear violation of the one-person-to-a-hand rule. After all, if it's illegal to ask a friend in the stands whether to make a tough call or to fold, how much more wrong is it to get an omnipotent supernatural being to alter the order of the cards in the deck after the shuffle?

On the other hand, maybe God really does help Mr. Yang. Maybe that's how he knew to call Lee Watkinson's all-in reraise with just a stinky little A-9: God was whispering in his ear (in a voice like that of Charleton Heston, no doubt), "He's only got A-7, so you're about 75% to win. And besides, I've peeked at the deck with my x-ray vision, and there's no 7 coming. Go for it." That would be a pretty darn handy way to win poker tournaments, all right. Maybe it's the only way Mr. Yang can win. In fact, come to think of it, maybe that's what is meant by the "glorifying your name" business: Having him as the game's ambassador for the next year tells the world, "Look, God is so powerful that he can even make a really, really bad player the world champion! Walking on water is child's play next to that kind of miracle!"

But if so, I still have to wonder how God goes about picking his winners. After watching Mr. Yang, it certainly isn't on the basis of skill and preparation. Nor is it based on conduct at the table. He wasn't over the top or downright rude, but the loud cheering every time a card fell that was favorable to him just isn't cricket, as the Brits say. When you see Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, Doyle Brunson, Dan Harrington, Greg Raymer, Allen Cunningham, John Juanda, T.J. Cloutier, or other classy guys start doing this, then you'll know that the rules of conduct have changed (for the worse), and it's OK. Until then, keep a lid on it, dude. It's obnoxious and annoying.

Look, I have nothing against people in general, or poker players in particular, being religious. Daniel Negreanu has said several times in his blog that when he feels his relationship with God is out of sorts or taking a lower priority than it should, his poker results suffer. OK--so be it. I certainly can't prove that that's not so. And believing that God will help you win a tournament is, objectively, no crazier than, say, Gavin Smith thinking that not cutting his hair gives him better luck than when he cuts it. On the other hand, it is, objectively, no saner and no more rational than thinking that a certain fat denizen of the North Pole brought the presents under your Christmas tree in a magical sleigh pulled by eight flying reindeer.

But putting your slightly nutty beliefs on international display in a manner that opens all sorts of unanswerable questions of logic and theology just isn't smart. It just makes you look foolish, as if you haven't given more than passing thought to what you're doing and its implications for how you think divinity operates. Keep it to yourself.

Addendum, added 7/20/07:

I just saw this article in the Las Vegas Sun:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sports/2007/jul/19/566665723.html

More evidence for Yang's peculiar thoughts about how God works is found therein. Note that apparently divine omniscience doesn't mean that God necessary understands poker, because he needs Mr. Yang to tell him what specific cards to have the dealer pull out of the deck in order to make him a winner.

Once, for instance, he risked a big chunk of his stack of chips with just a
pair of 4s and ran smack into an opponent's higher pocket pair.

It was then Yang - like a lot of poker players, including some who are probably more
reluctant to admit it - turned to prayer.

"I kept saying, 'Lord, give me a set,' " Yang said, using the common poker term for three-of-a-kind. "And there was a 4 on the flop."

Another time, Yang needed an ace or a 4 on the final
card to fill a straight and extend his tournament life.
"I said, "Lord, if you want me to win this, put the ace or the 4 on the river,' " Yang said. A 4 came, and Yang lived to fight on.

"I've seen miracles," he said.

Celebrity (lookalike) sighting (non-grumpy content)

Hey, look who I played poker with tonight at Planet Hollywood.

That's right, it's Michael Moore! Or at least someone who looks a lot like him, which is close enough, right?

Worst call ever (non-grumpy content)

Orleans tonight, $1-2 no limit hold'em game. Player A, on my right, is a smart, rock-solid guy who plays true tight-aggressive style. I don't think I ever saw him show down a losing hand. Player B, on my left, is a tourist, probably from Australia, judging by the accent. He appears barely old enough to gamble. He's playing an "any two cards" style, and for the first hour or so it's wildly successful; he hits at least 4 full houses in that time with completely junk hands. He has at least doubled his original $100 buy-in. He's obviously feeling like the poker gods are going to be on his side all night.

I'm in late position with K-Q offsuit. I put in a raise. Player B calls from the button, as does Player A from one of the blinds. The flop is A-10-7 rainbow. I don't like that much, but when A checks, I put in a standard continuation bet, hoping both opponents will credit me with an ace and go away--and even if they don't, I might get really lucky and catch a jack for the straight. B calls. Dammit. Then A check-raises all-in. I've seen him check-raise a couple of times before, but never all-in, and never against two opponents. (He's sitting on $400+ and has both of us covered.)

I'm outta there as fast as I can throw my cards away. But B is seriously contemplating a call. After maybe 30 seconds, A throws him a bone. He spreads out his two hole cards face down and tells B, "You can pick either one to look at." B picks the one on his left. It's a 10.

Let's review the evidence at this point. A has been playing absolutely no-nonsense poker, showing down only winners. He called a pre-flop raise from out of position, then followed that with an all-in check-raise of two opponents. To top it off, he's confident enough of his hand to let an opponent pick one to look at, and it's a pair to the board. Unless Player A has just had a stroke, or ingested LSD with his last Perrier, the bare minimum he has here is two pair, and it shouldn't surprise anybody if he were to turn over pocket 10s for a set.

In fact, Player B seems to recognize this, and says, "Oh, damn--I bet the other one is a 10, too." But then he thinks a bit more and says, "To hell with it. Let's gamble. I call."

And with that, he flips over Q-2 of diamonds.

Let that sink in for a moment. Q-2 of diamonds. There is one diamond sitting out there in the flop.

Not surprisingly, Player A turns over A-10, for top two pairs. The only way B can win is runner-runner straight, runner-runner flush, or Q-Q or 2-2 for trips. According to an online odds calculator, he just under 6% to win--and that's not even accounting for the fact that I folded one of the jacks he would need for the straight and one of the diamonds he would need for the flush. If Player A actually held a set of 10s, as B seemed to believe, he would be only about 4% to win.

In other words, B put in roughly $200 believing that he was worse than a 20:1 underdog.

Just astonishing. I'm not sure I've ever seen a more jaw-droppingly bone-headed call.

When B didn't catch his miracle cards--surprise, surprise, eh?--he swore and got up from the table. The dealer asked if he would be coming back. He said he would, but not for a while, so don't hold the seat for him.

After he was respectably out of earshot, the chatter and laughter began. One player thanked the dealer for asking that question: "We all wanted to hear that he was coming back, but I didn't want to appear too eager." Somebody else closed his eyes as if in prayer and started chanting, "Please come back with more money. Please come back with more money."

I hoped the same thing, but didn't see Mr. B return during the time remaining before I called it a night.

I sincerely hope to run into him again while he's here on vacation, though.