Red and Blue

Dad liked to play poker. Just penny ante stuff at the kitchen table; no big stakes. Well, once years ago when he and his brothers and friends played regularly on Saturday nights he found himself on a hot streak which lasted several weeks. As most games were played at his house, Pops was teased a lot about marking the cards before the guys arrived for a game. So he decided one day to, I guess you'd say, call their bluff.

He bought a brand new deck of cards to use for the next Saturday's game. He left it in the plastic wrapping until time for the first deal, which would be his. Dad was going to make a show of how that game would be fair by opening the cards in front of the guys. It was meant to be all in good fun, going along with his being ragged about card marking.

So Saturday night came, everyone sat down, and Pops pulls out the new deck. You can all see for yourselves, fellahs, that this is a new set of playing cards which are obviously untouched, he says, or something similar. He gets a knife and cuts the clear plastic wrap, opens one end of the box, and triumphantly fans out the red-backed poker cards for all to see. Well, they were red, except the one blue-backed card (which happened to be an ace of spades!) amidst all the others. Sure, Bill, you don't mark deck.

Even Dad got a belly laugh out of that. As poker players might say about such things, 'What are the odds?'

Wild Cloyce

I've established that me Pops liked to play poker and that he held regular Saturday night games way back when. I asked him once whether he ever held a royal flush, the AKQJ10 all of the same suit. It's the highest poker hand possible. He held royal flushes twice. Yet he lost one time with one anyway.

The games were almost always at his house, and his house rule was that the dealer called the game they were to play while he dealt. Typically it was a standard round of poker and only varied by whether it was draw or stud (don't worry about what those are as it's not important to the story). But he had this one friend, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who liked to do things differently. Cloyce invariably introduced wild cards into the game.

He might call the well known deuces wild, where twos could be any card you needed them to be. Or it might be one-eyed jacks and suicide kings were wild. He would sometimes call baseball, where threes and nines were wilds. Dad hated such variations. But he felt that in fairness he had to allow them.

Once when Cloyce called for wild cards, me Pops ended up with a true royal flush: 10 through ace, all hearts. No wild cards. Yet he lost to someone holding five sevens: three actual sevens with two wild cards.

That grated him, and I understand why. I think you ought to play the cards true myself. But fair is fair, and at least it wasn't Cloyce who held the five of a kind.

Pithy Pity Party

What do you do when you're sitting up in bed at 1:30 in the morning? You watch Get Smart on TV. It was the episode where Max saves the day despite himself.

You also play internet poker for millions of fake chips. Then, I might add, you find yourself upset when you lose a hundred million fake chips on a bad beat. I mean, it took me months to build that mountain of worthless cyber cash.

And I doubt that any one of you have any pity for me.

Channel Surfing

Well, I was propped up in bed last night with TV for muh friend. Yet its offerings were thin. Could you believe they was nothing on despite their bein' hundreds of channels?

I observed Andy Griffith overseein' Mayberry. No wrong ever lasts in Mayberry, 'ceptin there only having two episodes by the time I caught up to it last evening. I proceeded to channel surf.

They was little in the way of sports beyond poker and cornhole. I got nothing against either, though I scratch me head at cornhole fillin' the airwaves of ESPN. It's fun enough, even tho a simple family reunion pastime seems outta place on national TV. Folks actually make money on that?

Scrolling along the guide channel, one show offered the story description that 'Anna panics at finding her room on fire'. Now, I wouldn't wanna presume to speak for everyone, but it does seem that discovering one's room on fire might just incite a body to panic, sure. But that way of tellin' people what a show is about strikes my soul as understatement. 

Whilst I do pray that Anna's plight was resolved to her benefit, I turned my attention instead to the book I been reading, about the Moon landings. You know, I do believe they may have truly happened.

Cloyce cards

So I've established that me Pops liked to play poker and that he held regular Saturday night games way back when. I asked him once whether he ever held a royal flush, the AKQJ10 all of the same suit. It's the highest poker hand possible. He held royal flushes twice. Yet he lost one time with one anyway.
The games were almost always at his house, and his house rule was that the dealer called the game they were to play while he dealt. Typically it was a standard round of poker and only varied by whether it was draw or stud (don't worry about what those are as it's not important to the story). But he had this one friend, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who liked to do things differently. Cloyce invariably introduced wild cards into the game.
He might call the well known deuces wild, where twos could be any card you needed them to be. Or it might be one-eyed jacks and suicide kings were wild. He would sometimes call baseball, where threes and nines were wilds. Dad hated such variations. But he felt that in fairness he had to allow them.
Once when Cloyce called for wild cards, me Pops ended up with a true royal flush: 10 through ace, all hearts. No wild cards. Yet he lost to someone holding five sevens: three actual sevens with two wild cards.
That grated him, and I understand why. I think you ought to play the cards true myself. But fair is fair, and at least it wasn't Cloyce who held the five of a kind.

Exploding pandas

Like many a soul these days, I play online games. I play mostly on facebook, and have become somewhat adept at those games I play. You know how it is: you start playing and build up points, cruise through new levels, make your team stronger so that you play stronger teams and so on. It gets addictive, to be sure.

I've played WGT baseball for so long that I have a regular championship squad. Poker? I've played tens of thousands of hands, all with fake money. So I get get fake wins; it's not like it's fake news, right? I've played enough farkle, a dice game, that I'm so far advanced that it will be two years before I can level up again. Yeppers, I've wasted a lot of time on pointless gaming.

My latest addiction is Panda Pop. You save mama panda's babies in a variation of the old balloon pop games which have been around since Atari was a real player in the video game world. The panda cubs are trapped in bubbles in the sky and you have to save them, often using explosives. And it finally popped, hee, hee, hee, into my head this morning: I'm saving baby pandas by blowing them up.

Doesn't that seem somehow wrong? I mean, how do you save a life by blowing it to smithereens anyway? Especially lovable little pandas.

What are the odds?

Dad liked to play poker. Well, once years ago when he and his brothers and friends played almost every Saturday night he found himself on a hot streak which lasted several weeks. As most games were played at his house, Pops was teased a lot about marking the cards before the guys arrived for a game. So he decided one day to, I guess you'd say call their bluff.

He bought a brand new deck of cards to use for the next Saturday's game. He left it in the plastic wrapping until time for the first deal, which would be his. Dad was going to make a show of how that game would be fair by opening the cards in front of the guys.

So Saturday night came, everyone sat down, and Pops pulls out the new deck. You can all see for yourselves, fellahs, that this is a new set of playing cards which are obviously untouched, he says, or something similar. He gets a knife and cuts the clear plastic wrap, opens one end of the box, and triumphantly fans out the red-backed poker cards for all to see.

The guys saw the cards all right. Each card was red...except the one blue-backed card (which happened to be an ace of spades) amidst all the others. Sure, Bill, you don't mark deck.

Even Dad got a belly laugh out of that. As poker players might say about such things, 'What are the odds?'

How I think you should play Texas Hold'em

I've been playing a lot of online poker the last few years. I've yet to play for money, though. The idea of actually risking anything beyond the penny ante simply doesn't appeal to me. Still, I like the game enough to play even for pretend stakes. And even then, I think it should be played seriously. Why? Because one day you might want to try playing with real cash, and if you play poorly in practice, you'll play poorly for real. Yes, that's a dad saying. But like most of what our dads have said, there's a lot of truth to it. They do get smarter as we get older.

So here's a few tips which I find useful when playing. They're from an amateur, me, and I'm sure many of the pros would not endorse them. But I feel I've done well playing Texas Hold 'em the Marty way. And I feel confident that some of the pros would endorse some of my methods anyway.

It's almost always bad to go all in on the first two cards. You should only do it with a pair of Aces, or with Jacks or better when you hold the fewest chips at the table. The game changes too much over five shared cards, and by my experience you lose better than half the time even starting with that pair of Aces. Generally speaking, don't go all in on two.

You will lose more hands than you win. That's the nature of the game. So while it's okay to be aggressive, and you do have to be a bit of a bully to play well, the cards will be against you more often than for you. Be selective with your aggressive play, and remember there's a fine line between aggressive and foolish.

If after the turn you need two cards to earn a decent hand, play conservative and be ready to fold quickly. The numbers are against you; you aren't likely to get both cards.

Bet from strength. If you have a hand which looks very difficult to beat, be aggressive. An easy example I think is when you have any two hearts and three more are on the board AND a straight flush is unlikely. Push that hand hard.

I do not like the bluff. It's too dangerous. Still, you should place small bets or make small calls often enough even with lesser hands to keep your opponents unsure of your tactics. Part of the game is creating uncertainty about your motives. That, however, does not mean betting to 'make things interesting' as a very poor player I know will often do. The game is interesting enough as is.

Beware the wild bettor. He's usually very aggressive or very stupid, and probably the latter. Don't get into raise wars with them. They're depending on luck and, I mention again, the cards are generally against you. They will win at times despite their stupidity. Let the others at the table deal with those players. They'll usually burn themselves out within a few hands; why lose your chips trying to make that happen?

Don't call a high raise unless you know you've got the cards to beat it. I know, you can never really 'know'. But a clear headed study of your hole cards against the common ones will usually give you all the information you need.

I think that's all for now, although I believe I'll share more tips later. But I can't give away too much, of course. I may play you one day.

Stacking the deck

I spoke a few days ago about how Dad like to play poker. Well, once years ago when he and his brothers and friends played regularly he found himself on a hot streak which lasted several weeks or more. As most games were played at his house, Pops was teased a lot about marking the cards before the guys arrived for a game. So he decided one day to, I guess you'd say call their bluff.

He bought a brand new deck of cards to use for the next Saturday's game. He left it in the plastic wrapping until time for the first deal, which would be his. Dad was going to make a show of how that game would be fair by opening the cards in front of the guys.

So Saturday night came, everyone sat down, and Pops pulls out the new deck. You can all see for yourselves, fellahs, that this is a new set of playing cards which are obviously untouched, he says, or something similar. He gets a knife and cuts the clear plastic wrap, opens one end of the box, and triumphantly fans out the red-backed poker cards for all to see. Well, they were red, except the one blue-backed card (which happened to be an ace of spades) amidst all the others. Sure, Bill, you don't mark deck.

Even Dad got a belly laugh out of that. As poker players might say about such things, 'What are the odds?'

Texas no-limit poker the Marty way

I've been playing a lot of online poker the last few years. I've yet to play for money, though. The idea of actually risking anything beyond the penny ante simply doesn't appeal to me. Still, I like the game enough to play even for pretend stakes. And even then, I think it should be played seriously. Why? Because one day you might want to try playing with real cash, and if you play poorly in practice, you'll play poorly for real. Yes, that's a dad saying. But like most of what our dads have said, there's a lot of truth to it. They do get smarter as we get older.

So here's a few tips which I find useful when playing. They're from an amateur, me, and I'm sure many of the pros would not endorse them. But I feel I've done well playing Texas Hold 'em the Marty way.

It's almost always bad to go all in on the first two cards. You should only do it with a pair of Aces, or with Jacks or better when you hold the fewest chips at the table. The game changes too much over five shared cards, and you lose often even starting with that pair of Aces. Generally speaking, don't go all in on two.

You will lose more hands than you win. That's the nature of the game. So while it's okay to be aggressive, and you do have to be a bit of a bully to play well, the cards will be against you more often than for you. Be selective with your aggressive play, and remember there's a fine line between aggressive and foolish.

If after the turn you need two cards to earn a decent hand, play conservative and be ready to fold quickly. The numbers are against you; you aren't likely to get both cards.

Bet from strength. If you have a hand which, in studying the cards, less than 4 can beat you, be aggressive.

I do not like the bluff. It's too dangerous. Still, you should make small bets or make small calls often enough even with lesser hands to keep your opponents unsure of your tactics. Part of the game is creating uncertainty about your motives when at the table.

Beware the wild bettor. He's either very aggressive or very stupid. Don't get into raise wars with them. They're depending on luck and, I mention again, the cards are generally against you. Let the others at the table deal with those players. They'll usually burn themselves out within a few hands.

Don't call a high raise unless you know you've got the cards to beat it. I know, you can never really 'know'. But a clear headed study of your hole cards against the common ones will usually give you all the information you need.

I think that's all for now, although I believe I'll share more tips later. But I can't give away too much, of course. I may play you one day.