Since I play poker a great deal, at some times more than others, I figure that this web site should have a place I can go and just talk poker every so often.

I also wrote a poker thriller I am shopping out to editors right now called DEAD MONEY and another novel I have just started to try to sell that is a satire on the gambling industry called THE SLOTS OF SATURN. Both are based in my experiences in the professional world of poker and gambling. I’ll shout if I sell either book.

I play poker at what is called a semi-professional level. I tend to make money at the game when I can play on any sort of regular basis. I’m also lucky that I have two good poker rooms in casinos very close by. In fact, one casino is just five minutes from my house. I still, at this point, can’t seem to make a game or tournament any more often than every two weeks. I’m just too busy with writing and other things.

One point right up front. I am not a gambler in any sense of the word. I would never play a slot machine or any table game where the house had an edge. Kris and I keep track of every penny I win or lose, and we declare my winnings on our taxes at the end of the year. Since I write full time, I can’t call poker a business under tax rules, but I still treat it as one.

So, to start this page off, I’m going to talk about a poker hand I played last week. I’ll try to be clear to those of you who do not play much poker, or who only watch it on television. Later on, in other essays here, I’ll give some of my background in poker and Las Vegas. I got some strange stories, since I started playing in Vegas in the early 1970’s and paid my way through college playing cards.

Anyway, to the hand. It was a no-limit hold’em game. The blinds were $2.00 and $4.00, with the limit on the betting to the amount you had in front of you. At the time of this hand, I had a little over two hundred dollars in front of me. Nine people were at the table.

My position was one behind the button.

I glanced down at 4 clubs. 5 clubs.

This hand is called “suited connectors” and it’s a good hand to play if you can get in cheap and there are more than three people in the pot. I was looking to get lucky for almost no money and hit a big hand. Otherwise, against any raise, I toss it away.

One guy on the other side of the table limped in for $4.00, another to my right did the same, I did the same, the button did the same, the little blind called and the big blind just tapped. So we were going to see a flop with 6 people in the pot. That was perfect for my hand. Perfect.

Flop comes:

3 clubs. Jack hearts. 6 clubs.

Just about as good as it gets for a flop for my hand. I not only have an open-ended straight draw, a bad flush draw, but also a straight flush draw. For those of you counting, I have 15 cards left in the deck that could win the hand for me, some better than others. Those cards are called “outs.”

Or, in odds terms, I have about a one in three chance of catching a card that will help my hand to possibly win. However, I don’t like the flush draw part of it at all, so in my mind I knocked that down to eight outs. Any club but the two and the seven of clubs could cause me real problems. So I went into the hand with about a one in five chance to hit a winning card.

Big blind leads out with a $20.00 bet. (At that point I read him for a jack with a bad kicker and he’s trying to win the pot right there.)

Guy at the other end of the table calls the bet, guy on my right folds. There is $64.00 in the pot and the guy besides me on the left looks like he’s going to call as well, so I am betting $20.00 to make $84.00 at least, plus any implied bets in the next round if I hit my hand big. It’s a borderline call as for the odds, and I make it. Guy on the button beside me calls as well, and the little blind folds.

$104.00 in the pot and four of us still in.

Turn card is a 7 of diamonds. I have hit my straight.

Big blind leads out with a bet of $40.00. I’ve changed my reading on him to have a flush draw. He’s not betting enough to scare anyone, and not enough to hurt him either if some reraises him and he has to fold. I don’t think he sees the possible straight out there. (Turns out this read was wrong.)

Guy on the other end folds, I decide to call instead of raise at this point, and to my surprise, the guy beside me raises the bet to eighty.

I sit back and think about the hand. One of them I figure is on a flush draw, the other might have hit a set or something else hidden. The guy beside me is a top player and I was suddenly very worried about him. But at the same time, he wasn’t beyond raising $40.00 to try to take the pot right there. Forty might have done it in another hand at this table and he knew that.

Big blind called. I have the best hand at that moment, so I call as well. I didn’t reraise because of that damn flush possibility still out there, and I know a reraise would not drive either of them from the pot.

$344 in the pot with three players going to the river.

I am praying for anything but a club. But here comes a club on the river. The 7 of clubs.

I have a straight flush in a no limit game.

There is also a regular flush possibility on the board and a full house possibility. I had what is called “the nuts.” The best hand possible for those cards. I was in heaven, and I was hoping beyond hope that one of them had hit a flush and the other a full house. My only problem was now how to get the most money out of the other two players.

Big blind checks. (Damn, I had hoped he would bet.)
Bet is to me. I can’t take the chance that the guy on the button won’t bet, so I come in for $50.00. Small enough to make it seem that I am weak and trying to buy the pot, but large enough to get another hundred out of the hand if both just call.

Guy besides me thinks for about a minute, then folds. (It turns out he had the straight as well, only with suited hearts, and he laid it down for fear of the flush. I told you he was a good player.)

The big blind comes over the top of me, all in, for about $40 more. He thinks he has it won, that much is clear by his actions. I call him with just about my last $40 as well.

Then I roll my cards over and say, “Sorry.” (I’m not, really.)

Turns out he had limped in with Jack-seven on the big blind and the last seven had given him a full house.

I raked in $524.00 for that pot and the guy I beat was angry at me. He said he would play me and beat me drawing at that hand nine out of ten times. Of course, he hadn’t looked back at the hand at all or the real odds on what happened. You know, the television look. <g>

– At the start, his Jack-seven against my suited connectors was only a very, very slight edge. Maybe 48% to 52% would be my estimate without doing all the math.

– On the flop, his pair of jacks put him slightly ahead, but my flush and straight draw chances kept me within only a few percentage points behind him.

– He hit two pair on the turn and I hit a straight. Suddenly he was way, way behind. He only had three outs (cards) out of a possible 40 plus to beat me. About 8%. Yet, he was mad that I beat him.

I just shrugged and let him rant as he reached for his wallet to buy more chips. I left thirty minutes later about three hundred up for the two hours.

It is rare, maybe even a dream, that you get a straight flush against a full house in a no-limit game. I’ve been on both sides of such hands over the years, and trust me, I like the winning side a lot more. <g>

Ahh, well, back to writing now. More poker and my history in poker and gambling as things come up. Stay tuned.

Cheers, Dean