Call!

Modern no limit hold'em is dominated by aggression. Bet! Raise! Re-raise! All-in! There's a very good reason for this; simply put, aggressive actions give a player two ways to win the pot instead of one. Either you have the best hand, or you get your opponent to fold.

No one ever talks about the lowly call, it seems. Sometimes weak, sometimes a trap, the call is often not chosen for strategic reasons, in my observation. Here's a list of my favorite reasons why people call a bet, particularly after the final card has been dealt.

The Scoreboard Call A classic from my old .10/.20 home game, this is a call made often by a shortstacked player. The pot is huge, the player's chipstack has dwindled, and his hand is marginal at best. He knows that he's gonna lose the pot...HOWEVER, he has a plan! Maaaaaybe the opponent is bluffing(he's not, but MAYBE!). Maaaaybe he'll win that big pot and have a big stack again. Even if he's wrong, though, our hero has an ace in the hole, so to speak. If he loses this pot, he can rebuy and he'll have a big chip stack again! The scoreboard looks good either way - big stack by winning, big stack by losing. Scoreboard call!

"I knew you had the ace!" Same general idea, but a different reaction. The last card has fallen, and our hero's hand is again marginal. The opponent makes a massive bet, causing the hero to grumble a bit before reluctantly calling. The opponent turns over the nut straight, which he had flopped. Mucking his top pair loser, the hero sulks and utters the immortal words, "I knew you had that."

Really? You did? Nice call, then.

The Friendly Call New situation! Our hero's finally made a monster hand. Not the absolute nuts, but close. He checks, looking to trap his opponent, who obliges with a river bet. Suddenly, the hero's nerve fails him. He should raise, he knows he should raise, he knows he has the best hand. But what IF his opponent has that gutshot straight? It's possible! The hero magnanimously announces, "All right, I'll be friendly, I'll just call." The opponent turns over top two pair, and breathes a sigh of relief when he sees just how big the hero's hand was. He would've called a rather big raise, but thank goodness our hero's playing a "friendly" game!

"I call, I have outs" This one is dedicated to its master, Joe Poker. Joe had a keen eye for how many outs, real or imagined, remained in the deck with his hand. He would raise the flop, only to get reraised all-in because he had misjudged the strength of his opponent's hand. Fortunately, he had his draw, and he'd built the pot large enough where he could call with his funky drawing hand. Invariably, he'd utter the famous line, "I call, I have outs." Nothing like knowing for a fact your hand is beat but calling anyway!

Waking Up A Slow Game

"The Slow Game" - a poem by AKFortyKevin.

Limp, fold, limp, limp, limp, fold, fold, limp, limp, check.
Flop 48Q.
Check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check.
Turn 5.
Min bet, fold, fold, call, call, fold, fold, call.
River J.
Check, check, check, check.
"I have aces." "I have QJ." "I have 67, i was hoping you'd bet."
Next hand.


If you've ever played in a slow game, that little tale sounds familiar. No one raises, very few bets, lots of limping. All in all, it isn't a particularly profitable game for the aspiring pro, as everyone seems content to just let the cards fall off the deck and onto the table. The worst part is, it's incredibly, mind numbingly boring.

There are a couple ways to fix this though. Some of them go against many of the principles the pro should normally follow; in fact, on their own they usually involve a play with negative expectation, i.e. they lose money in a vacuum. Why try them? In the end, the money you gain by livening up the game will far outweigh a little short term loss. Without further ado...

Show The Bluff Pick your target. Say there's a loose weak player up front who limps in. He calls pretty much everything preflop, but folds if he misses his hand on the flop. Perfect. When it gets around to you, make a raise with a garbage hand. I mean REALLY garbage, like in the 72 offsuit realm. He'll probably call, then check to you on the flop. Why? Because he is passive and we already know that from prior hands. Make a standard continuation bet. If he missed, he'll fold.

(By the way, most hands dont connect with a random flop. This is the logic behind continuation betting and one of the reasons why aggression is so important in poker. If you can win all the hands where both you and your opponent miss the flop, you'll do very well in NL hold'em.)

Playing a really really bad hand is somewhat out of character for my game, but here's the big diversion. SHOW YOUR HAND. Lay that 72 offsuit out there for all to see. Let them know you're in there with any two cards, playing some poker. That'll send a buzz into the crowd, and it'll also give you a little more action when you go back to playing a solid game. Might piss off the one player, but hey, we picked him because he was bad at poker, so he's probably not going to come back to haunt us.

Straddle/Blind Raise Regrettably, in Atlantic City it is illegal to perform what is called a "straddle", i.e. willingly posting another blind at least double the regular blind, when you're first to act. But a blind raise works almost as well for stirring up the game. If it's 1/2, make it 5. Big spender! He didn't even look at his cards! Let everyone know how little the money really matters. The standard raise from that point will be to 15, 20, or more - a lot of action for a game where everyone was just limping only a single hand ago. Usually someone else will jump into the "crazy" gambling fun, and all will be well again. For 5 bucks you can't buy this kind of entertainment anywhere else.

The Sleeper Even better than the limp raise, because you do this one in position, from the button or right before it. Before the cards are out, throw a raise in. In AC that raise will stand if it comes around to you. Again you're advertising an insane lack of respect for money, and this rubs off on people - hey, it's a casino, we're here to gamble! Once your opponents start thinking that, the game will liven right up.

Buy A Round If you have the alcoholic tolerance of an ox, go ahead and buy a shot for every player at the table. They'll probably be grateful, and you'll take the alcoholic hit better than they do. There's a reason casinos serve free drinks, you know.

There are many variations on the theme, but the basic idea is to get your table thinking less about playing poker and more about "gambling", since you've got the edge as a pro in both odds and skill. Be careful, though - delve into this line too much and it'll be tough to tell a skilled pro from the drunken idiot who flings money at anyone willing to catch it.

Lying at the Table

Back from Ireland, and back at the tables. Finally! Ireland was wonderful, by the way. Between the Guinness, Galway, the Aran Islands, Guinness, seals, music, Guinness, bike rides, climbing over ruins, Guinness, and of course JAHmahsahn's Irish Whiskey(with its honey/vanilla taste and smooth, peat-free, finish), I could not imagine having more fun in a week. But poker calls, and yesterday I was met with an interesting question: what place does lying have at a poker table?

Obviously, deception plays a rather large role in the game of poker. Bluffing with bad hands, checking with big hands, and most other poker plays rely heavily on telling a story that is at odds with the true strength of your hand. However, what about after the hand is over, and what about talking while playing a hand? It's accepted practice that lying is perfectly ok at a poker table, but is there any inherent value to it?

Example: I raised preflop with AQ and got 4 callers. Hooray. Flop came A43. None of the players seemed to be the types to play pocket treys, pocket fours, or any ace, which are the only hands that can beat me, so I was fairly comfortable. It was checked around to me and I bet out about 60% of the pot, a standard continuation bet that I hoped a more perceptive opponent would notice I'd make with just about any hand. The first player thought for a long time, and seemed to be contemplating a raise(in my head: please raise! please raise! I'd already discounted all the hands that could beat me, so unless he had something like deuce five of diamonds, I was ahead). Eventually a disgusted look came across his face and he mucked his hand, as did the rest of the table. As I raked in the pot, he said to me, "Could you beat A9?"
Now....

The Truth Yes, of course I could beat A9. I had AQ, after all. I gain little by telling him the truth, though - I make him feel like he made the right play when he actually DID make the right play, and I'm very much opposed to encouraging opponents to play well.

The Lie What happens if I tell him that, no, I had QJ suited or some other such hand? Obviously if he believes me he will feel he played poorly when he actually didn't, so I gain something. But bragging about a "bluff" often has the rather unfortunate effect of pissing people off, and my style of game is centered largely around people enjoying losing to me. Angry opponents may make more mistakes, but the raise in aggression can cause some short-term variance in the game that I'd personally rather avoid.

Little of Column A, Little of Column B There is, of course, door number 3, which I chose in this case. Responding to his query, I said "Eh, A9 was probably not the best hand. Gotta call to find out though." This answer, in my mind, is playful enough not to anger someone, and reinforces what I'd prefer all along: don't raise me, just call me. Subtly, you can turn a good player into a calling station, a loose/passive weak player who is easily defeated.

In this case, the opponent was not thrilled with my response, so I quickly changed the topic to the universal Talking To Guys language: sports! A little 'Nova/WVU hoops discussion and everything was good once again. Hey, he'd lost the pot, but it was to a friend!

101 Typical Poker Players

Gonna start a running "I don't have anything to talk about so I'm filling it with a gimmick" gimmick; without further ado, I give you 101 people you will likely encounter if you play poker often enough!

101. Old Guy There are almost always 2 or 3 Old Guys at the table. They learned Texas Hold'em 40 years ago, when playing 67 or QJ offsuit was simply taboo, and if someone called an all-in raise preflop they had at least pocket kings. They now sit at the table, hand after hand after hand, folding everything but premium cards and drinking free alcohol.

100. Internet Pro Ah, the internet pro. He is pretty much the opposite of Old Guy - mid 20s, drinks bottled water, plays every other hand, etc etc. Internet Pro likes to complain about bad beats, and he'll know exactly how unlucky he got, down to the last decimal place on the odds. Internet Pro often listens to music, wears shades, and generally approaches the game like it's Day 5 of the WSOP main event. These guys are fun to tease, since they're so damn serious.

99. Happy Drunk Guy Happy Drunk Guy can't wait to give his money away. He's at a casino, he's got free drinks coming his way every 20 minutes, and he's not playing craps or roulette: he's way ahead! Be friendly to Happy Drunk Guy and you're almost a sure bet to have a fun, profitable poker experience. The best games are the ones with multiple Happy Drunk Guys just giving their money away to Friendly Pro(yours truly).

98. Angry Drunk Guy The regrettably inevitable cousin to HDG, the Angry Drunk Guy can ruin a poker game as quick as anybody. He doesn't enjoy losing, but he's mentally impaired. This is a potentially lethal combination, and it only takes one spark before cards, chips, drinks, or anything else gets thrown, spiked, dropped, spilled etc. Fortunately the casino will usually take care of Angry Drunk Guy before he gets too out of control. In the meantime, although he's a profitable mark, it's sometimes the better part of valor just to get out of his way and find a more sane group of table mates.

97. Rich Old Guy A distant relation to Old Guy. You can tell the difference by how much the older gentleman buys in for, and the color of his rewards card. Max buy-in + VIP card = Rich Old Guy. Usually ROG will play fast and loose, with little attention to the strength of his hand, because he genuinely doesn't care if he wins or loses. He probably just dropped 5 grand at craps anyway - what's another 300 bucks? Fortunately, he generally doesn't have a keen understanding of the game, either, so he becomes just another loose-weak calling station. In other words: jackpot!

96. Jersey Shore Cast Member This dude is a humorous combination of Happy Drunk Guy and Angry Drunk Guy, mixed with some MTV stereotyping for good measure. Get on his good side early and he won't get angry at you regardless of The Situation(sorry, I couldn't resist.)

Tournaments are boring.

8 hours of tournament play today, made 83 dollars for the effort.

What did I do for most of it? Well, I got dealt AA precisely once, AK precisely twice(offsuit both times) JJ precisely once, and basically a pu pu platter for the rest of my starting hands.

I flopped one set, with deuces, and my opponent turned a straight. I lost the absolute minimum though because his neck vein nearly burst when he hit his card.

For the rest of the 8 hours? Well, one thing to keep you occupied is the steal-raise, which I've been using far more often since reading Gus Hansen's book. "Stealing" is basically raising when you sense the table is uninterested in the hand, with the goal of winning the middle right then, or taking it down on the flop with a small bet when/if they miss their hand. It works very well in most situations against most weak players, and is an effective way to slowly build a chip stack.

Other things to kill the monotony:
-Made side bets on curling! Nothing more exciting than the 10th End of a 4-3 match when the USA women's team has the hammer. By the way, the Russian team is smokin' hot. Just sayin'.

-Talked to everyone about how loose I am. Gotta build that image - if everyone knows I'm capable of raising with any two cards, then I can get away with stealing after a flop of 457 waaay more easily. Hey, it's my range, and I let everyone know it.

-Flirted with the dealers! Always a winner - their job is monotonous to the max, and any kind of friendly, nonconfrontational conversation seems to be welcome, so I oblige. No reason to torture the folks that hand out the cards, is there? I'm thinking of starting a "Don't Blame the Dealer" union - distribute hats and pins, and anyone wearing a pin is honor-bound to defend the dealer when some drunk asshole decides they missed their gutshot straight draw because the dealer is evil.

-Sang Kenny Rogers! "You gotta know when to hold'em, know when to fold'em, know when to turn and walk awaaaay!" Singing is perhaps the easiest way to subtly irritate 9 other adults without actually being aggressive in any way. Irritated players make mistakes, it's true.

-Quoted Rounders! "Hanging around, hanging around, kid's got alliGATor blood, can't get RID of him."

-Identified southerners' home states based on the accent. I'm getting pretty good at this one - got North Carolina and Texas right on one try today, both times.

Basically, tournament poker can hit some really rough, boring patches. I do my best to keep the table friendly, happy, on edge, and just a little fearful of me. If they think I'm out of my goddamn mind, so much the better.

Quantum Poker

"No way, I can't believe you made a straight flush! This game must be rigged!"

"You hit a two-outer, that's nuts, that never happens."

"I flopped a full house, but the other guy flopped quads!"

Seldom does a day go by where I don't hear the lament of some poor poker-playing soul who seems to be devoid of luck, who literally has the deck stacked against him. A crazy thing happens, and he simply can't get over the fact that not only was he unlucky, he was statistically very very unlucky. It happens again and again, and some players eventually come to believe that everything about the game is rigged in some way or another. This is especially true in online poker, where bad beats come thick and fast, and it often seems incredibly unlikely that the things happening are random. Is poker as random as it is advertised? Or is there some devious master plan that is simultaneously screwing over most players while benefiting a select few?

I have a favorite analogy to describe how the apparently skewed results poker players see every time they walk into a card room derive from a misunderstanding those players have of statistics combined with the sheer volume of statistical trials a poker table or room produces. For me, the statistical voodoo found in poker rooms is a fairly accurate model for some aspects of quantum mechanics.

How, you may ask, could a room full of large, macroscopic things such as cards, people, tables etc, have anything to do with quantum mechanics, which deals almost exclusively with the microscopic and smaller? Statistically, quantum mechanics describes random chance's effects on particles, as well as the effect of a massive number of trials for any given event occurring. There is, for example, an event known as quantum tunneling, where a particle can mysteriously move from one point to another in space, even if there is something blocking that route. The likelihood of this happening is ridiculously, monumentally small, yet we observe it over and over again. The reason is that, though the chance of any individual particle tunneling through an impassable wall at a given moment is incredibly unlikely, if you put a bajillion(or so) particles next to the wall and give it enough time, that incredibly, monumentally unlikely occurrence is almost a certainty to occur. It's a good thing this is true, because quantum tunneling enables, among other things, the nuclear reactions that occur in the sun to happen, which is very important to a poker player's continued existence and profit margin.

So, the poker part of this whole mess: If you have 85 tables in the Borgata poker room, each dealing something along the lines of 25 hands an hour, with each one of those hands being played by 10 people or so, it suddenly becomes very likely that "something weird" will occur, on a fairly regular basis.

The odds of flopping a royal flush are 1 in 610,756 hands(trust me). 85 tables *25 hands per hour * 10 players per hand = 21,250 hands played in total per hour in the Borgata. 600,000/20,000 gives a rough estimate that, on average, one person will flop a royal flush in the Borgata poker room every 30 hours or so. Suddenly, that incredibly unlikely event is happening almost once a day! Factor in the range of things that are considered unlikely(four-of-a-kind, a runner-runner draw(meaning hitting 2 perfect cards on the turn and river to win a hand), set over set, four-of-a-kind running into a straight flush, etc) and you can see how very very unlikely things will be almost commonplace in a busy enough poker room.

So every time something incredibly, unbelievably unlucky happens to ME, I remind myself that, if it weren't for random, unlikely events occurring, the universe wouldn't work. So I've got that going for me. Which is nice.

Tight/Loose and Aggressive/Passive

When describing players' tendencies, two traits jump forward as the most important to deduce early on. They are best described as scales which everyone falls on: the Tight/Loose scale and the Aggressive/Passive scale. Most players will tend towards one of the first and one of the second in their style.

The Tight/Loose Scale This describes a player's initial decision as to whether they should play a hand, as well as their willingness to continue in a hand after the flop, turn, and river. Tight players generally fold more often than the average players, whereas loose players will not, and may play significantly more hands than an average player. When a player is tight, you must be prepared to either push them out of the pot or show down a quality hand yourself, because if they make it to the final card, you know they will have SOMETHING decent. Loose players, on the other hand, will often have marginal holdings, so calling their bets or value betting your marginal hands becomes a viable strategy.

The Aggressive/Passive Scale The first scale answers the question "how often does a player continue?" This scale answers the question "HOW do they continue once they've made that decision?" Aggression refers to a tendency to bet and raise rather than check and call, while passive play, obviously, would be to check and call rather than bet and raise. Passive players are far easier to deal with, since they rarely force you to make a decision. Aggressive players, even bad ones, will constantly pressure you to make decisions and ultimately can force you off the best hand if you aren't careful.

Once you decide where someone falls on each scale, you can choose a strategy that is tailored to counter their tendencies. The four basic types of player are the tight/passive player, the tight/aggressive player, the loose/passive player, and the loose/aggressive player.

Tight/Passive This player, often described as "weak" rarely enters a hand. When they do, they usually have something big, like aces, kings, queens, or AK. Knowing they have one of these hands actually makes it profitable to play against them, with the intention of hitting a straight, flush, or two pair and getting them to overplay their overpair. In general, though, the best strategy is to steal their blinds when you can, and to push them around. If they show resistance, get out fast because they have a monster.

Tight/Aggressive This player, known as "solid", is very very dangerous, and many professionals can be described more or less as this type of player. They adhere to relatively strict starting hand requirements, so they don't play junk hands like Q6 or 94 suited very often. Once they DO enter a hand, though, they put maximum pressure on their opponent, betting and raising if they think their opponent is weak, and giving themselves multiple ways to win the pot(either making the best hand or pushing the opponent out). Beating this type of player requires the use of various poker deceptions such as bluffing, check-raising, and slowplaying. Also, playing hands such as 56 suited or 44 can work well against them, since you'll either make a big hand and get paid off, or miss your hand entirely on the flop and simply fold with little risk.

Loose/Passive The "calling station", this person rarely folds and rarely raises. He'll limp with Q5 off, flop a queen, and call every single bet all the way down. The number one rule about playing against this type of player? NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER BLUFF! EVER! They simply don't understand they're supposed to fold when they have J4 and the board is 89TJ8 with 3 hearts. Their thought process gets as far as "Hey! I have top pair!" and simply stops. To beat this player, value bet for every penny you can get when you have a decent hand, and feel free to play strong hands in a straightforward way. Slowplaying and check-raising won't work either, since they're unlikely to do the betting.

Loose/Aggressive Last but not least, we have "the maniac". Money doesn't seem to be valuable to this player, and outrageous bluffs make them happy people. It is actually good to sometimes play passively against this player, just calling when you would otherwise raise. This gives them the opportunity to hang themselves by bluffing big later on in the hand. Professional poker player Layne Flack likes to say, "Why do the pushin' when the donkey will do the pullin'?" Not surprisingly, "donkey" is now an accepted term for a bad poker player.

My Poker Ph.D Part III

(Note: this post has a LOT of poker vocabulary in it. I'll try to put up a poker vocab post at some point in the future)

Live poker is a completely different beast from online freeroll poker. Pokerstars enabled me to build a solid base of knowledge about the game of poker. It gave me a feel for the odds, a feel for the relative values of hands, and a feel for how position(i.e. the order people act in a hand; the later the better, strategy-wise) really affects the outcome of any hand. Individual player tendencies are difficult to follow, since each player "looks" pretty much the same. Consequently, the best strategy online is to to play the best solid game you can play - maximizing gains, minimizing losses.

In live poker, player tendencies come to the forefront. What you have matters, but what your opponent holds matters as well. Figuring out the latter can make the former inconsequential - if I know a player check-calls the flop with second pair but check-raises with top pair or better, then I can use that knowledge to run circles around him (make it too expensive by betting big later in the hand if he has second pair, play more conservatively if he raises, etc)

I started playing a relatively small game at college: 10 cent/20 cent no limit hold'em, min buy-in $20. I'd like to introduce you to a few of my memorable opponents and their tendencies, as well as how I countered those tendencies to maximize my profits. Over time, the limits increased, and the stakes got higher, but their tendencies remained largely the same. Without further ado..

Joe Poker Joe was one of the central organizers of the games I played in. He specialized in limit games and draw-friendly games like Omaha(essentially hold'em with four cards instead of two) and razz(lowest hand wins!). Because of this background, he loved to play "drawing hands", i.e. hands like 4 to a straight or 4 to a flush, where there is potential to make an almost sure winning hand, but where you also don't have anything yet. Joe's love of drawing made betting and raising big with a pair or better very profitable - he often overplayed his draws and got a lot of money into the pot with just a draw. Also, calling his big flop bets was a must, since he liked to "semi-bluff" with a draw - bluff with a chance of making a big hand anyway. Either way, his classic statement after calling an all-in bet: "Call...I have outs.", meaning he knew he didn't have the best hand but was calling anyway.

Antonio Antonio played a solid game. He bluffed a little too much, a little too obviously, but that was only a minor error. His biggest weakness, though, was that he was wont to go "on tilt"(play poorly or emotionally after a big loss or unlucky moment). Early in the evening was an excellent time to play a longshot draw against Antonio - hit it once and you could be relatively sure he'd lose his whole stack out of frustration later in the night. The lesson here: don't play emotionally! (P.S. You already know this, Antonio!)

Cyrus Ah, Cyrus. Every good poker game has players known as "producers", people who lose large amounts of money consistently in the same game. Cyrus didn't care about the money - the stakes were small for him. He raised, reraised, and put pressure on his opponents at every opportunity. Aggression is good in poker, but not if that's your ONLY strategy. In the end, a LOT of money went into pots that he should never have been a part of. To beat an aggressive player, usually the best course is to just let your opponent hang himself by calling, calling and calling some more. Cyrus, however, tended to believe you were bluffing him, and would reraise right back, so being slightly less aggressive, but not much, was the order of the day.

Dorian If Cyrus was aggressive, then Dorian would best be described as insane. Reraising a 60 cent bet to 20 dollars or more was standard. Simple to beat - grab a good hand, get the money in the middle. Sometimes it's that easy.

Ashraf Ashraf was somewhat of a "calling station" - he preferred to check-call with decent hands rather than betting or raising. To beat him, I would make a lot of value bets, meaning I bet with somewhat marginal hands, trying to extract the maximum value out of these hands. He bluffed occasionally, but since he preferred calling when he didn't have a monster hand, it was relatively easy to bluff him right back and take down the pot with nothing. Calling stations are pretty simple to play against, since it's easy to dictate the pace of the hand and difficult to overcommit yourself with a marginal hand. He won't reraise you most of the time.

Sumeet Sumeet once read somewhere that aggression was good in a poker game, and that playing tight was also good in a poker game, and that playing "tight-aggressive"(little of both) is the best professional style. He suffered from a poor sense of starting hand quality - he often played hands like Q6 suited or K4 offsuit, which led to him having a lot of second-best type hands when his top pair of kings got beaten by my top pair with a higher kicker(second card in your hole cards other than the pair, i.e. if I have AK and he has K4 on a board of K63, the ace is a higher kicker than the 4) The response - play solid, and mix him some fancier moves just to keep him thinking about poker strategy, since he usually thought about it poorly.

The Kaiser The first person I could legitimately "read" by looking at his face. If he was excited but quiet, he had a hand. If he was talking, he didn't have a hand. Fairly easy game once you know your opponent's cards.

There were a few players who legitimately knew how to play(Rob, George, Alex, Asian Rob, Dave, etc) Against these players, I had to break off of one simple strategy and use poker tricks like slowplaying, trapping, bluffing, smoothcalling, and everything you'll find in a poker strategy book in order to disguise the strength of my hand and figure out the strength of theirs. Generally, the good players all played aggressively, so there was some value in simply playing solid poker: let them play every hand, I'll just play the good ones.

Strategy constantly evolves when you play with the same people over and over again. You learn their tendencies, and they learn yours. In a casino setting, however, you don't have the luxury of knowing how everyone plays when you sit down. Categorizing players becomes paramount, so I'll go over that in my next post.

MY Poker Ph.D. Part II

At about the same time, my thoughtful mother noticed my interest in poker television shows. Following the very sound logic that if a TV program was good, a book would be even better, she bought me "Positively Fifth Street", professional writer James McManus' account of the 2000 WSOP championship event and the concurrent murder trial for the murder of WSOP founder Ted Binion. Harpers magazine forwarded McManus $4,000 to write an article about the trial, the rise of women on the professional poker circuit, and the effect on the tournament of computer games dedicated to teaching poker. McManus took his essay money and used it to win a seat into the championship event, and then described his 5 day odyssey of bad beats, wonderful plays, and genuine luck as he wove his way to the final table. McManus eventually finished in 5th place, netting over $240,000 dollars for his effort, and simultaneously he starred in a thrilling nonfiction that most novelists would never dream of. The book captures all of the best and worst elements of Las Vegas and poker: high stakes, skill, good luck, bad luck, a scandalous murder trial, and the magic of a game that allows a novelist to compete and defeat the very best players in the world. After such an account, how could I not try to find a way into that world?

My first real foray into Texas Hold'em began with the website that provided Chris Moneymaker with his now-famous $40 WSOP satellite: Pokerstars. As a 17 year old, playing online for real money was out of the question. Playing with free "play money", however, was certainly ok. The site gave players 1000 chips to start with; if you busted, you could "rebuy" to get 1000 more chips, up to 3 times an hour(the rebuy limit encouraged players to at least attempt not to lose all their chips every single hand).

My buddy Mike started playing at around the same time, and tacitly the competition was on - first to reach 100,000 chips wins! I clicked to receive my 1000 chips and promptly lost them all. Rebuy, bust. Rebuy, bust. Rebuy, bust. Damnit, gotta wait an hour!

Slowly, though, I got the hang of the game. I played a conservative strategy and tried to minimize my losses while maximizing my gains, mostly due to a loathing of losing. Only later did I learn that, in the crazy hyperaggressive world that is play money internet poker, such a strategy is nearly ideal. I started winning chips. 2,000. 5,000. 10,000. 50,000. 200,000. 1,000,000. The (albeit fake)stakes got higher and higher, and I learned more and more about the game.

I started playing in free money poker tournaments - 10,000 entrants, top 9(!) win a seat into a second tournament on the weekend where real money would be awarded. In those I excelled, managing to finish in the top 9 with mathematically unlikely regularity, and even winning a pair of them. Despite the fact that it wasn't real money, and despite the fact that I never managed to win anything in the weekend second round tournaments, I nonetheless felt a sense of pride; it's not every day you get to beat ten thousand people in anything, after all.

Online play money poker was fun, but I needed a new challenge. Poker, after all, is played with money. The risk/reward factors that are subtle in some games are made blatantly obvious in poker - win and get paid, lose and go back to your wallet.

I needed to play "real" poker. I needed to play for money.

(Part III to follow)

My Poker Ph.D.

One of the top five questions I'm often asked is, "Hey, how come you get to call yourself a "professional" poker player?"

(The rest of the top five: "Do you REALLY play poker for a living?" "Wait, isn't that illegal?" "So...how'd you do last night/week/month/year/lifetime/etc", and "Do you play against real people or against the casino?" If you ever ask me a question about poker and I respond with a look of infinite patience tinged with barely-restrained aggravation, it's probably because you asked a question I'd heard three times already that day. Not your fault, you couldn't have known. Moving on...)

Well, the path to title of "professional" wasn't a casual overnight epiphany. Nor is it 100% related to skill - there are phenomenal amateurs and average pros. The key distinction is a certain level of dedication to the game; poker is not a hobby to me. Also, though there are no formal poker schools(other than a few WSOP "camps" that are basically pyramid schemes), there is a level of study that few people are willing to dedicate themselves to in order to maximize their success in the game. I've read several dozen poker strategy books, spent hours watching professional games on television, and spent hundreds of hours playing the game itself regularly.

I've always been drawn to games of skill, with card games in particular striking a chord. My mother and my aunt taught me various forms of rummy and gin, as well as hearts, chess, backgammon, Stratego - if it was a game, I loved it. While in middle school I picked up the collectible card game "Magic: The Gathering", which was as much a drain to my wallet as poker is a boon. Although I never could afford to buy the "best" cards, I managed to beat most of my friends and even won a local tournament.

High school brought with it new card game challenges, and two games I still consider among my favorites: Spades and Big Two(a variant on Chinese poker). Every lunch period was an excuse to bring out a deck of cards and test the resolve of the vice principal, who seemed to consider constructive use of time to be against the rules.

All of these games were fun, and I was good at them. At about the same time, ESPN started showing highlight shows of the "World Series of Poker." It featured a poker variant called Texas Hold'em, and for the first time they showed the players' cards while they played(To be fair, the British show "Late Night Poker" began using a "hole cam" to show cards in 1999, and the World Poker Tour opened it up to American viewers in 2002. ESPN's broadcasts were the first time I ever saw it, though.) In 2003, an unknown poker amateur named Chris Moneymaker(no, really. Moneymaker.) spent 40 dollars in an online poker tournament, won a $10,000 seat in the WSOP main event, and won that too, cashing in for $2.5 million.

And I was hooked.

(Part 2 to follow)

Welcome to the Pokernicus Blog

Ah, poker. A game of luck and skill. A game that's easy to learn, impossible to master. A game featuring both mathematical acumen and psychological profiling. And ultimately, a game that can be very profitable to a skilled player, but devastating to the wallet of an amateur(...or also to that of a skilled player. Did I mention the luck factor?)

Much has been written about poker over the years, and now more than ever there exists a wealth of information that is widely available to the interested newcomer. If you visit my profile, you will find a listing of some of the finest poker books I've read. For the more technologically minded, there are many websites devoted to the discussion and strategy of poker.

However, I intend for this blog to focus on a different aspect of the game: not so much how to play, but why we play, what the game is really like, and just who the people who play really are.

If you're interested in what exactly the odds are for drawing to an inside straight on the turn in no limit Texas Hold'em, you will probably be disappointed with this blog. If, on the other hand, you're looking for the reaction of a skilled pro when a drunk at 2 am calls a massive bet and spikes his straight,(hint: probably not as awful as you think.) then this is the blog for you.