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August 06, 2005
Breaking even
I played poker last night, the first time I’ve ever played for real money. I must be the last person on earth to get into poker, but hey, better late than never, right? It was a lot of fun, and since I broke even, it turned out to be a night of fun for free. :)
I didn’t actually know the people there—I had been hanging out with Jon over at Liz’s place, and he got wind of this poker party over in the basement of a friend of a friend of his. But everyone was cool, and they were really patient with me, considering I didn’t really know what I was doing. The buy-in was only $5, so it’s not as though there was much at stake.
I have to give credit to Jacob for keeping me from losing money. Almost everything I know about poker (the sum total of which could fit in this parenthetical) I learned from him, including the most important lesson: as long as you don’t have the blind, you’re playing for free, which means: fold early, fold often. I hardly played any hands at all unless I felt as though I had a decent chance at winning the hand.
Only one time did that really burn me. I had a Queen and a ten, and the flop had both a Queen and a ten pocket Queens, and the flop had a pair of tens, so already I had two pair. The river was a third ten, and so at this point I figured I was in the clear. So I slowly raised the pot until the point where Jon went all-in… only to find that he had the fourth ten. Do’h! Thank god I had more chips than he had at the time.
Anyway, I wound up finishing second, which I attribute mostly to dumb luck. I won a few hands I probably shouldn’t have, but so it goes, right? In any event, I had a great time, lots of fun, and now I’m hoping I’ll be able to find a semi-regular game.
Posted by alex at August 6, 2005 11:37 AM
Comments
one can hardly be blamed for losing with a full house to four of a kind; that has certainly cost me and made me a lot of money. if you liked playing you can play online with fake money to get more practice……….wait a minute….he didn’t have four of a kind. he must have had a better full house?
Posted by: mammalman ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.boycats.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 6, 2005 08:42 PM
Yeah, you’re right, I misremembered; note the correction. He definitely had four tens. And yes, with three tens in common, I was running the risk that he’d be holding the last ten. But I figured he probably had a full house together with the turn (which wasn’t a face card), so unless he had pocket Kings or Aces, I figured I was safe. Goes to show…
Posted by: alex at August 6, 2005 11:45 PM