Calvin's Weblog

My Wife the Shark

Carole and I went to a no-limits Texas Hold'em Poker tournament Saturday night. No, not to watch - to actually play! Crazy, I know... we've never played poker before (well okay, we know the rules - but playing in a tourney isn't about knowing the rules!) but since it was only a $20 buy-in, we figured "what the hell, it'll be fun - let's give it a shot!"
I spent all of last week learning no-limits betting strategy, learning how to play position, which hands are best in which position, how to read the other players, etc, and spend about 10 hours practicing in online poker rooms. Carole didn't really want to know all the technical details, but Friday night I summed it all up for her as "if you're in early position, bet these hands and if you're in late position bet these hands". My hopes were that she'd stay in the game long enough to have some fun, and that I myself would at least last two hours. That was the goal...
After three hours we were both still in the running, and 15 minutes after that, it was down to the last table. We had BOTH made it to the last table! Carole had been betting just like I told her - folding amost everything, and only staying in play if she had high pocket pairs or suited face cards. She still had aproximately the same amount of chip in front of her as when we started. I, on the other hand, was down to my last 300 (the $20 buy-in gave us $1250 in chips).
The rest of the players at the last table had at least $6,000 in front of them. I was out in another 10 minutes, but Carole limped in with the underdog stack.
The big better's tried to bully her stack, but she stuck by the rules and if she had made it past the flop, that meant she was holding. Everytime they tried to 'all-in' her, she went 'all-in' and won their pots. Another hours went by. She had doubled up three times. Everyone was out now except Carole, and one other player. He held about $12,500 and Carole had about $5,000. Carole drew pocket Aces and bought into the flop - her adversary figured this was his chance, and went all in, thinking she'd fold and he'd chisel another $1000 out of her stack. Wrong! She went all-in too... all the women were rooting for Carole - in fact, most of the guys were too... everyone was watching the flop,turn and river with baited breath and when the smoke cleared, Carole's pocket-rockets stood, she doubled up again, and now held a commanding lead! About $10,000 to $7000.
About another nial biting half hour passed, and Carole had him down to his last $3000 when he pushed all-in again. She folded. It turns out he had bluffed... "Calvin, I folded a pair of fives! I would have just won if I had kept them!!!! Your rules suck!" - "Hey, they got you this far, didn't they? That was the right move... sure, you lost that time, but how many times have you thrown out a low pair tonight that would have been beaten if you had kept them?" Pretty much everyone agreed that I was right, but still, I had to admit, that hand could have been the game for her. After that, her momentum was shaken, and her foe had renewed confidence. He fought his way back to even, then into the lead. It was now about 1AM and Carole was down to around $2000. She hesitated to call pre-flop, and he sensed her weak hand - when she did call, he went all-in... and she followed. It wasn't a great hand - she should have folded, but with only enough chips left to but into one or two more hands, it was do or die time... and with the flop came trips for Carole's nemesis. Game over - but one hell of a game well played! We left $40 in the hole, but with one hell of a great story to tell.
We'll be back next month for sure! Carole's got the bug... and I'VE got some serious practising to do! Oh, by the way, you may be asking yourself - if they were my rules that got Carole so far, why was I out so early? Well, it was a case of "do what I say, not what I do"... it takes a cool head to throw out a low pair pre-flop when you're convinced it's probably the best hand on the table... I couldn't do it, hell I probably still wouldn't do it. In fact, I was actually betting unsuited 10, 9 in big-blind position, knowing full well it was a terrible thing to do - I just couldn't shake that though of "what if the straight actaully flops? I'll win!" Bad, Bad, Bad. And again, super-kudos to my wife the shark. She was sooo worried about not being able to bluff - but as it turned out, she didn't even need to bluff - she just played it cool.