Poker news from http://www.stuff.co.nz/
Think you can gamble your way to a good return? In a night at the poker table Greg Roughan finds losing easier than winning.
There's no better way to kiss your money goodbye than playing poker. I think of it as an entertainment spend - money down the drain for the sake of fun. Cheap fun too, for the stakes my friends and I play. And yet, if at some level I didn't want to win, and didn't want it bad - and if it didn't sting when I lost a hand - I couldn't play.
Try playing poker with matchsticks - you'll muck around for 20 minutes. Put in a fiver each and you'll be there till 4am.
There are places you can go to do it, in private, with other like-minded people.
An email contact takes me to a nondescript pre-fab building in Auckland. There are about 40 guys in the room - and one girl.
I sit down at the table and there's an icebreaker moment - men leaning forward out of chairs to shake hands across the table. We were strangers before tonight. Names are exchanged, repeated, forgotten.
We settle back down, the dealer is decided, and cards skip across the table in six rough piles - two cards each.
One thing quickly becomes clear - there's a shark at the table.
"Hi I'm Kevin, I'll be taking your money tonight," he says, and maintains a stream of unfunny jokes for the next few hours.
Table talk is designed to unsettle the other players, irritate them, and provide a mask behind which a big mouth can hide his intentions.
It's a reminder that we are playing against each other, that there's cash at stake, and that you only win by beating everyone else. Clearly big mouth has played before.
I check my cards.
AdvertisementAdvertisementThe game is Texas hold'em no limit poker. Everyone here has been playing the game in small groups of friends, after work, on the internet, or at the casino.
But tonight is something different - an underground amateur tournament, organised by text and email. The buy-in is $40 - or $100 for the high-roller tables, and you drink and eat for free. It's legal only because no one makes a cut or percentage.
In Texas hold'em, each player is dealt two cards. Five more cards are then dealt onto the table, visible to everyone. You need to make the best possible hand out of only five cards.
The cards come out in stages - three, then one, then one more - and at each stage everyone has the chance to bet.
It's all in the betting. You'll never know what your final hand will be until the last card is dealt onto the table. But because there are four rounds of betting before the hands are revealed, speculating about those cards can be expensive.
Everyone's speculating, guessing and calculating. And, of course, bluffing.
I check my cards. Nothing worth staying in for. I fold.
Next round's the same. With big mouth at the table, everyone's playing conservatively.
I get some OK cards - there's the potential for a straight, and they're highish cards if it comes down to pairs. I put my money in, but big mouth raises and I chicken out. Goodbye money.
And then comes a win. I'm dealt two twos, and the table cards are a two, a king and queen. Everyone's looking at the big picture cards - I bet low, then on the last round bet high, as if I'm bluffing - another player matches me, and my three of a kind spanks his two pair.
It's important not to let your hands shake when you rake across the chips.
Fortunes swing wildly. The novice at the table bets all he has on a hand, and is beaten. His chips are in someone else's pile now. That lets the winner throw his weight around and bet high. Now the risks of playing against him are dire, but to him, the potential losses are sustainable.
But big mouth is holding his own. I suspect he is playing basic strategy: calculating the odds of his hand winning, measuring them against the value of the pot, and playing or folding as the formula dictates.
I am relying more on intuition, an ability to spot suppressed excitement in the other players, and some rudimentary calculations. I make big wins, but irregularly. His are small and constant.
And then I find myself, several hours - and beers - into the game, face to face with big mouth. I'm betting high, he's matching me, everyone else has dropped out of this round. The dealer lays the last card out - a heart - I've got a flush. A killer hand.
"All in," I say, and push my whole pile to the middle of the table. And the sucker matches my bet.
I spread my cards with a flourish. There's an "ahh" of appreciation.
Big mouth throws his down like lead slabs - the table makes a painful "ooh".
He's got a flush too - and his is higher.
Everyone says I should buy back in and keep playing, but I'm not so sure. I think of it as an entertainment spend - money down the drain for the sake of fun. And I've had plenty.
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