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It’s every amateur poker player’s dream.
You’re sitting at Binion’s Horseshoe Casino;
Matt Savage, tournament director for the World Series
of Poker, is on the microphone telling you the blinds
will be going up in two minutes. Howard Lederer has
been sitting on your left for the past hour and you’ve
artfully navigated the waters to avoid any confrontation
with him.
You’re the small blind and Howard is the big
blind. You’ve got about 2000 chips and Howard
has slightly more. The blinds are 100/200 and you have
the 10-6 of spades.
Except it’s not a dream. I really am at the Horseshoe
and ‘The Professor’ is actually sitting
on my left. I’m attending Howard Lederer’s
three-day poker fantasy camp: three days of morning
seminars given by the likes of Annie Duke, Eric Seidel,
Phil Gordon, Chris Ferguson, Lederer and panel discussions
with Layne Flack, Amir Vahedi, Clonie Gowen, Andy Bloch
and others. Afternoons are spent playing with the aforementioned
pros, both in tournaments and in sit-n-gos, with the
pros and discussing each hand. It’s a poker fan’s
paradise.
The guy under the gun folds, as does the gentleman
in the next position. A woman tosses in her cards and
now I’m praying someone will raise so I can fold
without shame. There are only two players left and I
start dreading the obvious. “What the heck am
I going to do if everyone folds to me?” The guy
in cutoff position folds, but surely, I trust, the woman
on the button is obligated to at least make a small
raise and take a stab at the pot. She folds.
I recall David Sklansky’s theory: if everyone
folds, they likely had bad cards, and the probability
is increased that those left have good cards. I want
to fold, crawl out gracefully, but just yesterday Chris
Ferguson told me to be aggressive. I know I can’t
limp in either. I just attended a seminar with Phil
Gordon explaining why one should never limp in when
one is first into the pot in a tournament. Phil explained
that in early position, one should raise about two and
a half times the big blind, but in late position closer
to three and a half. So here goes: I raise precisely
three and a half times the big blind. If nothing else,
Phil Gordon would be proud of me for not limping in.
There are now 900 chips in the pot (my 700 plus Howard’s
big blind of 200) and it’s 500 to Howard. He’s
getting 9-5 odds, so I am not certain what he will do.
Maybe I should have raised more – or just folded
like the lamb I am. “Please, dear God, let him
fold,” I pray.
Quickly and decisively, Howard calls. If they had a
camera on me at this point, I would probably be the
new poster boy for the Book of Tells. If Annie Duke
saw me at that moment, she would not only know what
cards I had, she would be able to tell what suit they
were, my mother’s maiden name, my favorite movie
and my shirt size. She would probably remark that the
neon sign blinking on my forehead saying “Dead
Money” was quite attractive. (By the way, in Annie’s
talk on tells that morning, she recounts studying with
the FBI and counting how often an opponent blinks to
determine whether they are telling the truth; but I
have uncovered one sure fire defense to combat Annie
Duke: play in a different state than she does.)
The flop comes with two spades and a blank, no aces,
kings or queens, no straight draws, nothing fancy, but
also no pairs for me. With my 10-6 of spades in hand,
I fulfill a lifelong dream. I am going to put Howard
Lederer to ‘the test’.
Here at the Horseshoe Casino, with 300 plus tournament
players in the room, in a place where Doyle Brunson,
Johnny Chan and Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson have
gone before me, I proudly announce: “I’m
all in.”
I want to stand up, take pictures, get the ESPN cameras
over to the table and savor the moment. Howard doesn’t
even pause (what happened to all that waiting, pondering
and analyzing we see on TV?) Nope, none of that needed
versus me. “I call,” he says, without missing
a beat.
But amazingly, and in an instant, my hopes soar. I
flip over the 10-6 spade flush draw and Howard has 8-4,
also of spades. We both have no pairs, we’re both
on the same flush draw, there are no straights to be
had and I have the higher cards. Howard shakes his head
and is surprised. My blinking, twitching, sighing, sobbing,
crying, moaning, whining and gazing skyward
apparently did not betray that I hadthe 10-6 of spades.
Win or lose, I’ve put the Professor all in and
I’ve got a better hand. Howard has to catch a
pair without a spade falling to beat me. He’s
about a 3:1 underdog at this point. The turn is a blank
and there are now 44 cards left in the deck, 38 of them
make me a winner and 6 make Howard a winner. I am slightly
better than a 6:1 favorite. “They’re gonna
put me on the cover of Bluff Magazine and discuss this
hand for years,” I’m thinking. “They
will surely come up with some clever name for the 10-6
of spades and it will forever be known as a ‘Dan’.
But just as quickly, my dreams are dashed. A lousy
four falls on the river and Howard catches a pair. I
am out of the tournament. (One postscript: Armed with
all my chips, Howard goes on to win the tournament.)
I drift off to play in a sit-n-go with Layne Flack.
We’re down to three players, so all of us are
in the money. Layne and I have struck up a colorful
friendly repartee at the table. Every time it’s
my big blind, Layne raises and he is visibly picking
on me. He goes all in and I call with A-9 offsuit. I
caught him. He has J-4 offsuit and I am going to knock
“Back-to-Back Flack” out. We’re at
the Horseshoe, and Layne and I together have five gold
bracelets (he has five and I have zero). So, of course
he catches a four on the river to beat me.
Dan Jacobs is an amateur poker player
who can often be found at Foxwoods in Connecticut, where
he is a partner in the state’s largest public
relations firm, Cubitt Jacobs & Prosek Communications.
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