Prologue

Like I said in my initial post, this blog is almost entirely about Poker. I may throw something about pro football, music or my kids in the mix - but it will generally be about Poker.

I first realized that I was interested in learning about this poker thing while watching the World Poker Tour (WPT) on the Travel Channel. I said to myself that this can't be that hard, and for crying out loud look at how much money these guys are raking in....! I got an online account with Party Poker and played very successfully with playmoney (which is an option for those that are either too scared or too broke to play with real money). After about 6 months of playing with playmoney and a bankroll of over a million playmoney dollars (I was feeling pretty confident!) I rushed out to the city library and checked out as many poker books that I could get my hands on.

As I read these books, I learned two important things:

1. People that write books about Poker intend to make it seem much more difficult and complicated than it really is...and

2. I was a lot better off not knowing all of the particulars about poker.

The second statement is not entirely true, but I can say that the experience was not very pleasant. I literally had to re-learn how to play poker, and I was dreadful for a while.

All of my experience was online, and I realized that much of the mechanics of poker had to do with learning to read people and interpret how they are going to play and react in each hand. I needed to play with humans, only because my two dogs are really good at poker and they stopped playing with my long ago.

I bought a really nice set of clay poker chips from someone on ebay, and began hosting a monthly game with people that I knew. They all thought it was for fun, but it was only a mechanism for me to use them as learning tools and take all of their money (evil laugh here!) ...and they were ripe for the picking!!!!

There were eight of us, and $10 to buy-in - 50% to the winner meant and nice chunk of change for my newly created bankroll. One of my good friends brought his wife to the first game I hosted, and she had never played before (haven't heard that one before!). Anyway to make a long story short, she won it all, and my friend came in second. I broke even, but felt humiliated because how could a person that never played before beat me....I mean come on....it's ME!

I learned a valuable lesson. Much too difficult for you to understand right now (only because I probably cannot put it into words!).

Here is a hand that I played in that could represent my entire evening in a nutshell:

I am dealt 10/10 in the Big Blind (which means that I have already automatically pushed in the minimum bet to start play). A few call the bet including my friend's wife (we will call her Eunice to protect the innocent). The flop comes out 4/6/10. I am sitting here with three 10's now and am trying to get as many people to stay in the pot!!!. Eunice bets first with a pretty high bet, and I call it. Every one else folds. Next card is an 8. Eunice doubles her first bet, and I double it with a raise. She thinks about it for a second and then calls that bet. Hmmm. I figure that she may have a straight draw working if she has a 7/9 in her hand, but all of my poker books say that she should not be playing that hand...and those books are always right! The river card is another 8. I hit a full house!!!! Eunice bets heavy, and I go ALL-IN!!!! Eunice doesn't even blink, she just pushes all of her chips into the middle. Poor Eunice, just doesn't know the genius that she is blessed to rub elbows with this particular evening. I grin and show my beautiful 10's and she starts giggling like a little kid. Must be her defense mechanism. I have her beat. Only one hand beats it.... She shows the other two 8's making four of a kind. I had never seen that before in my life...well my poker life.

I grinned, said nice hand and rebought some chips to continue playing.

I spend the next two weeks discecting that one hand. Where did I go wrong? What could I have done differently. I spoke online with another semi-amateur that I know(much better than me) and his answer was frustratingly simple:

"That's Poker!"

Well as much as I hate to say it, he is absolutely right. I can memorize all of the percentages and calculations, but nothing guarantees me a winning hand until the hand is over.

Well, in an effort to bring this full circle. We had another "Poker Night" in which I won everything and I was on the right side of all those good cards and as I was walking out of the door to go home Eunice could here me saying "That's Poker!!!!"

m²