Saturday, April 18, 2015

Reflections on Pendleton’s Spring Poker Rodeo



Poker is a game of skill. It is not gambling – at least, if you define the term “gambling” the same way I do. “Gambling” is putting money at risk when you have absolutely no influence on the outcome. Craps is gambling. Lotto is gambling. So is sports betting, roulette, slots, and just about everything else in the casino. That’s why whenever I enter a casino, I pass by all those tables and loud machines without even a glance and head straight to the card room, and I stay there until it’s time to leave.

Poker is a game of skill. Want proof?

Allow me to introduce you to Angela Jordison. Angela won the very first poker tournament held here this particular season. Now, there were 537 entrants in that tournament, and so for Angela to win (assuming poker is all luck and no skill), the chances of this happening would be 1 in 537 or a little less than two-tenths of one percent (0.2%). Not bad, huh? But also no big deal. After all, somebody has to win that game.

The next day, Angela entered the second tournament of the series. There were 448 players, and … Angela won that one too.

Wait a minute … the odds of the same person winning two tournaments in a row? Again, assuming it was all luck and no skill, that would be (1/537) * (1/448) or … four ten-thousands of one percent.

But Angela wasn't done. The next day, she entered the third tournament, which had 214 total players. You probably know where this is going. Yep, she won that one too. Three tournaments, three wins, one winner. That drops the odds of this happening randomly to less than two one-millionths of one percent. And that’s a mighty small number.

Just as an aside … she was on my direct right in another tournament (not one of these three), and she was without a doubt an excellent player. She came to my table with substantially fewer chips than I had, and was still there long after I had busted out.

This is one of the biggest accomplishments of this type that I can think of, and it happened because poker is a game of skill, and Angela was one of the very best players in that room.



It goes without saying that I played a lot of poker this week while I was out in Pendleton. Far more hours at the tournament tables than the cash games (and I scored one cash in the four tourneys that I played). There are quite a few hands that are memorable to me, most of which I played really well, including some that I lost. But I think this particular hand stood out for me.

It was fairly early in the tournament. Three players were in the hand, and the effective stack sizes were about 15,000 chips. Blinds were 200/400, and there weren't any antes being collected yet. A young aggressive player who was pretty good (although a little loose) opened the hand in middle position with a raise to 900. I was on the button with the Ten of clubs/Ten of hearts, and just called. Sometimes I would raise with a hand this good, but having watched this player for a while I realized that it wasn't likely I’d get him to fold out, and I didn't want to bloat the pot preflop only to have to release it later. Basically, I was playing to set mine, and willing to drop the hand if I missed. The big blind called the raise, so we went three to the flop with a pot of 2900 and stacks of around 14k.

The flop was Ace/hearts, Ten/diamonds, Three/diamonds. So I flopped middle set on a wet ace-high board.

I looked over at the big blind, and I could see that for some reason he had a tough decision on his hands. He was an older player who had not gotten out of line, so I was intrigued by his hesitation. Finally after some delay, he merely checked.

The initial raiser followed up with a bet of 1500 chips, around half-pot size. I expected him to have an Ace much of the time, and if he did I thought he might call a raise. But I decided to check instead, because I thought maybe the big blind might raise himself given his odd behavior, and I’d be happy to have those chips in the pot too. But much to my surprise, he folded. So the pot was at 5900 and our stacks were at 12.5k.

The turn was the Ace of diamonds. This brought the diamond flush on the board, but also a full house for me. At this point, my opponent checked.

Now I re-evaluated his hand range. While an Ace was still a possibility, given that there were now two on the board, it seemed less likely. I also couldn't put him on the flush. I considered that he probably had a high pair himself, or perhaps an Ace that he didn't want to bet because he thought he might scare me off whatever it was I had. I couldn't see myself getting any more of his chips with a bet at this point unless he had that Ace, so I just checked behind.

The river was Jack/hearts. The villain put out a smallish, 3000-chip bet. I decided to raise it to 8000 from my 12k stack. A shove just seemed too much here, and what I was hoping for was that he would shove on me instead with his Ace (or, less likely, his flush). But instead, he folded his pocket Kings face up, congratulating me on slow-playing my Ace/rag.

I just thanked him warmly, and collected the chips.



I didn't play a lot of cash games this trip, but I did play some. I helped open up a new 2/5 table which became populated by folks who (like me) had dropped out of the tournament rather early on. More than a few of these players were tilted, willing to sling a lot of chips around in an attempt to win back the entry fee of the tournament they’d just busted out of.

As luck would have it (and not particularly good luck), the three players on my immediate left were all extremely loose players. They seemed to make every bet in increments of $100 … or more. And they tended to tangle with each other more than the rest of the table, which was fine with me (and also entertaining). Since I've been around the poker room a time or two, I've learned how to play back at players like this. So I just nitted it up to maximum, and played pretty much nothing at all. Every hand had a raise, every raise had a re-raise, and frequently all this was preceded by a straddle which bloated the pot even further. The only hands I played were pocket Aces, pocket Queens, once pocket Eights which flopped a set, and maybe an Ace/King or Ace/Queen. I actually busted the guy on my left; and the guy on his left at one point asked me, “Haven’t you lost a hand yet?” I replied, “I only want to play those hands that I am going to win,” which actually was fairly accurate. After a brief four-hour session, I’d won more money than I had in a month at my last job.

Poker is a game of skill. And on top of that, it’s fun.

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