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When I was fifteen or so, a friend and I were crashing at another friend’s house. I didn’t know much more than the basics I just explained, but a poker game emerged. We played for hours, learning new games along the way. I’m sure I found joy in betting and calling with those plastic chips, stacking them up after winning a pot, flipping over the cards, and staring at opponents’ faces.
We were so intoxicated with poker that my friends and I started getting together for regular games. Once, as many as ten guys from Westhampton Beach High School played (never girls, except for the one night we tried a game of strip poker and everyone showed up wearing five layers). I had been around card games since I was a little kid and my great aunt Julia taught me something called Dirty Dog. Poker was in another class. Every hand was a different adventure, even though we always used those same 52 cards.
During a deal of five-card draw (where everyone gets five cards and is given the opportunity to exchange some of them), a goofy player looked over his hand and said, “Tally Ho.” Tally-Ho is a brand of playing cards, and as with most decks, the brand name appeared on one specific card. A quiet player looked at the goofy player and said, “Evan, do you have the ace of spades?” Evan nodded and, realizing his mistake, removed the ace of spades from his hand and showed it to us (remember, revealing cards in poker is bad). Really, he had shown us already.
One night we played Indian Poker. In this incredibly stupid variant, four cards are dealt to each player, all face up, and then each player puts the fifth and final card on his forehead, so that everyone except him knows what he has. After four cards, I had four spades and Chris, my lone opponent, had a pair. As I put the fifth card to my forehead the entire table gasped and my opponent cowered in fear in his seat. “Um, uh, I uh, bet,” he said. I called, meaning I matched the money he had bet, more sure that I had the flush than if I had seen the card myself. Of course the ace of spades was on my head and I raked in the pot. “You practically told me what you had,” I said. His response? “I was scared, seeing that ace up there!”
These were my first experiences in guessing my opponents’ hands without knowing what they were. We call this reading a player. When Evan said “Tally-Ho,” everyone at the table read him for having the ace of spades in his hand. When Chris bet as I had the ace of spades on my forehead, I read it as a bluff—an attempt to win the pot by betting with a lousy hand, hoping I would fold. Reading opponents is essential to poker success, and it is a topic we will return to throughout the book.
My high school friends all had fun playing, but most of them didn’t win. In fact one particular player, Jeremy, seemed to be the only one consistently coming out ahead. He didn’t talk much and almost never lost. I suspected him of cheating—not big-time stuff, but at least dealing himself a good hand every once in a while. I mean, I was the class nerd and I was spending time away from the table thinking about when to fold and why. How could someone else have been the big winner? Now I know. He was the only one who would bet the maximum. He would fold earlier than everyone else. He didn’t chase hands in wild-card games. Jeremy was playing well, and the rest of us were playing miserably. This is humbling for me even today.
I’m sure many readers will enter the poker universe through kitchen table games like the ones I played, so let’s examine some of the reasons I didn’t do well in them.

1. I played too many hands – It is virtually impossible to be a winning poker player if you’re committed to playing every hand “at least for the first few cards.” Even players considered gamblers, maniacs, loose (in poker-ese), usually fold more than half their hands at the first opportunity. The reason is simple: To win a pot, your hand has to be the best, not second or third, but the best. Opponents generally don’t fold often enough to allow you to play weak hands hoping to win without a showdown. You have to play only strong hands to be a winner, at least when you’re first learning the game. For example, in draw poker you should only play big pairs, and sometimes hands with four to a straight or flush (you would never draw more than one card hoping to hit those monsters). You’ll see later in the book how much experience I had before I played less-than-premium hands.

2. I never bet the maximum – Our game had a minimum bet of a dime and a maximum bet of $1.25. I would usually bet a quarter or so, since it was a friendly game. Being friendly is not the way to win. Earning the maximum with your good hands and minimizing the losses on your bad hands is the way to win. Furthermore, there is nothing unfriendly about playing your best game. To me, everyone playing his best and discussing hands after they’re over is the friendliest game possible. There is a poker adage that says if you can’t check-raise your grandmother, you shouldn’t be playing.

3. I chased and chased and chased — I would never fold a hand unless I had absolutely no way to win the pot. I had no idea there was a very specific way to determine whether to call a bet looking to improve, or to fold and give up (I’ll discuss this in detail later). I never thought to fold if there were cards in the deck that could win it for me.

The above comments apply to all forms of poker. As I mentioned, however, some of the games we played were wacky. These wacky games require a few guidelines which are all their own. You won’t see Doyle Brunson and Chip Reese discussing things like this over the $1,500-$3,000 table at the Bellagio:

1. In a game featuring wild cards—that is, a game where one card, like a deuce, can be used as any card in the deck—it is of paramount importance to have a wild card in your hand. Let’s say, for example, that you have three fours, but no wild cards. In a “real” poker game, you’d have a reasonably strong hand. But if we’re playing deuces wild and I have just one deuce in my hand, then I will win even if I only have a pair of fives to go with it! God forbid I get two wild cards—then a single natural pair gives me four of a kind! Natural hands only make you money in wild card games when your opponents play them.

2. It takes a much stronger hand to win in a game with wild cards. Really, this is just another way of making my first point, but it’s so essential that I make it again. If eight or more cards in the deck are wild, it’s not uncommon to see five-of-a-kind vs. a straight flush at the showdown, which usually leads to an argument over who gets the pot (most would say five-of-a-kind beats all other hands). Even if just deuces are wild, four-of-a-kind is a fairly typical winning hand. Do not draw to straights and flushes in wild card games—they will only get you broke. Holding wild cards with pairs is the only way to showdown a winning hand consistently.

3. Don’t be afraid to fold without looking at your hand. Sound stupid? One of our variants was called Seven-Card No Peek. Each player got dealt seven cards face-down, but could not look at any of them. When all the cards were dealt, the first player turned over one card and there was a round of betting. Then the next player had to turn over cards until he could beat the first player’s hand. So if the first player turned over an ace, the next player had to turn over cards until he found a pair. Let’s say the second player eventually turned over a pair of tens, and after the next round of betting, the third player turned over his cards one at a time, and they were seven, seven, seven. He now has trips already, and there is another round of betting. If he’s smart, he’ll bet the maximum. If you’re the next player to act, and haven’t seen any of your cards yet, should you call? Of course not! Your opponent has trips in three cards, and he is a huge statistical favorite. How can you fold a hand where you haven’t even seen any cards? Simple, take your hand, throw it in the muck, and count all the money you saved as everyone else keeps dumping chips in the pot.

None of the points I just made, about general strategy or wacky-game strategy, were obvious to me in my high school days. But poor intuition not withstanding, I was smitten with the game. I chose to write a poker-playing program as my end-of-semester project for a mathematical computing class. Programming is essentially logic. If this happens, then do that. If not this, then do something else. This translates easily to poker. Should I bet? If there is x amount in the pot, then yes. If there is less than x, then is there a chance your opponent will fold? If not, should I check and then fold, or check and then call? You could carry out these “if-thens” forever, which is what makes the game so intriguing.
My program didn’t know any strategy, and made all betting decisions at random (oh, to have a player like this in my games today). If I were to take up this project again, I would try to make it execute all of the strategy described in this book. But back in high school, I had trouble getting the computer to even print playing cards on the screen. I never had a finished product, but I had the beginnings of a lifelong curiosity.

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