In “Confessions of a Winning Poker Player” Jack King said, “Few players recall big pots they have won, strange as it seems, but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of his career.”
- Mike McD, “Rounders”
Second hand of my regular Tuesday night pub game, starting stacks of 2500 chips, blinds at 25 and 50. First position raises to 100, gets a caller from fourth position and it folds round to me. I peel up the corners of my cards and see two kings staring back. About three quarters of the time in this spot I’d reraise and try to either narrow the field to two players or take it down there and then, but my good position and the meagre pot persuades me to flat call. The small blind folds but the big blind calls, meaning there are four of us playing for 425 chips.
The flop comes down 4, 10, king with two clubs. The proverbial fireworks are going off in my head because I’ve just hit the nuts – top set (and incidentally a backdoor king high flush draw). The big blind – a strong and solid player – bets about half the pot, the original raiser calls and the other player in the pot folds. With straight and flush draws a possiblity, I’m happy to take the thousand or so chips that are out there and so raise another 750. The big blind, who’s got me out-chipped thanks to his pocket 7s turning into quads on the first hand, immediately re-raises me all-in. Obviously I call without hesitation – best-case scenario he’s got two pair or ace-king and I’ll win the hand 99% of the time. Worst-case scenario he’s got queen-jack of clubs (unlikely given how he’s played it, but hey) and I’ll only win two hands in three.
As the cards are turned over it’s closer to the first scenario than the second. A lot closer. He’s got pocket fours, giving him bottom set and meaning I’m about 95% likely to win. The turn’s a second ten that helps him not a jot and so there’s only one card in the deck that’ll knock me out on the river, the last remaining four. It’s a pure and simple 2% shot.
Yeah, you can see where this is going. Did the title give it away? Or the Rounders quote? Or the fact that I’m unlikely to have bashed out the better part of seven hundred words talking about a hand that played out in routine fashion?
To confirm the crushingly inevitable, then – my opponent hits four of a kind for the second time in two hands and I hit the rail.
Sometimes you just have to laugh. Arguably I should have re-raised before the flop and driven his poxy small pair out, most of the time I probably would have done exactly that. Better to win a small pot than lose a big one is generally my mantra. But the bottom line is that I got my money in the middle of the table as a 20-1 favourite. If I’d actually known the cards my opponent was playing, I’d likely have made the exact moves I did. But the beauty of poker and one of the reasons I find it so compelling is that even playing a hand perfectly isn’t always enough. Sometimes David beats Goliath. Sometimes you given a short, sharp lesson in how probablities work (Hey kids! Remember, massively unlikely <> impossible! Huh-huh-huh HEH!). Sometimes the board decides that you’re going to be knocked out and that’s an end to it. Poker is a constant reminder that mutability is our tragedy but also our hope, that neither success or faliure are entirely within our power to achieve, that you have to meet triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same. I love this game. I love the very special blend of psychology and extreme logic. I love what it teaches you about other people and what it reveals about yourself. It should be on every primary school curriculum in the country. Seriously.
Um.
Sorry about that. I have a tendancy to wax insanely pretentious when the cards strap on their Doc Martens and dance a passionate fandango on my gentleman’s area.
In summary, then: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!
That is all.
