Anatomy of a poker hand.

As many of you know, I love poker.

I can distinctly remember when my father taught me to play. This may date me, but who remembers when LifeSaver Holes were popular? They came in tubes the size of a roll of pennies. Anyway, those were our “stacks”, our chips. We would pull out the trusty TV trays and sit on the couch for hours playing 5 card draw. At the time, I had a problem with eating my own bets. Not so much anymore.

It wasn’t until much later that I began to appreciate the skills my dad had try to teach me at a young age.

During my sophomore year at Ole Miss, the World Series of Poker blew up, and I was introduced to Texas Hold ‘em. A quick run down of Texas Hold ‘em:

Each player is dealt two “hole cards” face down. A round of betting. The dealer turns over 3 community cards that each player can use to better his/her hand. A round of betting. The dealer then turns one card over. A round of betting. Finally, one last community card from the dealer is turned. Final round of betting. Read ‘em and weep.

I’ve played a lot since then. We would play at least once a week in college, and trips to Tunica, MS (local gambling city) weren’t as rare as they should have been.

I’ve won some, I’ve lost some, and most of all I love playing. I think there are a many things that draw me to the game: competition, exhilaration of the win, outsmarting your opponent, odds/probability, and the list goes on.

I wanted to document the play-by-play of a recent online hand (yes I play online poker).

I play poker online occasionally. I played for about 10 days straight when Virginia went out of town for 10 days. I started out around a month ago with a $150 deposit into my favorite site (rhymes with Rodog). I have systematically worked it up to quite a bit of money, and was “sitting at a table” last night where the blinds were $5/$10 – a table that I would never sit at live.

It was a six person table, and the average stack was about $1000. At the time of this hand, I had about $1200. I was on “the button” (was in the dealer position), which means that I’m last to bet in a given round when I was dealt 7d8d (7 of diamonds and 8 of diamonds), which I like. The action went as follows:

First to act folds. Player to his left raises the big blind to $35. Next player folds. I look down at 7d8d and smile, of course I’ll call this. I love calling raises online with mediocre hands like this. I may lose money on the flop when I don’t hit it sets me up perfectly for the situation I’m about to describe. Ok, so I call the $35. The small and big blinds both fold, leaving just the initial raiser, and myself following him.

What do you know? The flop brings 8s-8c-5h. So I’ve got a set of 8s and I’m thinking this guy has a decent hand (AJ-AK, 1010 and greater, etc.), but nothing that can catch up to me. Plus, how could he put me on calling with a single 8 in my hand?! So I’m sitting pretty. He’s first to act, and he takes a while before betting $75. There’s already $85 in the pot, so he’s trying to take it down immediately. I kind of laugh on the inside. I quickly call the $75 to try to play like I have something, (reverse psychology). The next card was probably the best card in the deck for me. It was the king of clubs. So on the board, we have 8s-8c-5h-Kc. It’s his turn to bet again. He waits maybe 5 seconds after the king fell before betting $185. So there is $235 in the pot when he bet $185. As I said before, this is a great card for a couple of reasons: (1.) If he has something like Ace-King, it allows him to hit his top-pair, (2.) if I raise, it looks like I have a king and he may call just to try to split the pot now that it’s so big. SO. I decide to raise to represent a king, thinking that surely he can at least tie a king. I raise to $695. This means that there is now $1115 in the pot. He waits for a long time (~30 seconds) before re-raising me all in for ~$200 more. At this point, I figure the only thing that can beat me is KK and, there is a slim chance (albeit very real with online poker) that he indeed has that. I mull over it for 0.5 seconds before calling the extra $200. That $200 call made the pot $2025! Low and behold, I played it just right – he flipped over AA. Pocket aces are a loser when I’m calling with 78 suited! The river was 10s; so he shipped all of his chips over for the $2025 victory.

The best part about this wasn’t the money. It was the fact that I outplayed and outsmarted that guy. I called when it didn’t cost me much, hit, and then played like I didn’t. I then raised precisely when I should have, (AA would love to see someone raise when a King hits), to take it to the bank.

That is why I love the game. It’s all in the head.