Holding the Nuts Read online

  HOLDING

  THE NUTS

  Adam Carter

  Copyright 2014, Adam Carter. All rights reserved. No content may be reproduced without permission of the author.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Pocket rockets. Look at those bad boys and weep!”

  I glance at the hand being laid down. It’s always interesting to note which players are dealt the rockets, more importantly whether it’s consistently the same players. That’s one way of spotting cheaters. But, of course, just because someone is dealt two aces once every so often, doesn’t necessarily mean she’s cheating. I’ve been playing poker now for – what? – ten years? I’ve seen a lot of people playing pocket rockets, even had ‘em myself on more than one occasion. Having pocket rockets doesn’t mean much. The odds of being dealt them are 220 to 1. Slightly better odds than being killed by a coconut (250 million to 1). Depends where you're playing I suppose, but you get the picture.

  No, pocket rockets don’t a cheat make. Nor do players who make a royal flush once or twice. I’ve seen three in my whole poker career. One was made by me during a practice session (no one there to see it, aargh!), the other two were by the same guy, name of David Falcon. Odds are against the casual player ever seeing a royal flush, but the same guy got two in the same year? Does that mean he’s cheating?

  Of course not. Just means he got lucky.

  So what exactly does make a cheat at poker? I’ll tell you what. People who can’t bear losing.

  Guy who got the two royal flushes? Would he care if he lost? No. Guy who’s just laid down his pocket rockets before my baby blues? Would he care if he lost? Doubtful, considering how often he’d be disappointed.

  Nope. Sometimes people just get lucky.

  Ashley Braebuck, that's me. And I'm a girl in case you're wondering. Spell-checks like to change my name to Bare Back for some reason, but there you go. No idea whether you play poker but I’ll try my best not to bog you down with terms if you’re a civvie. For a start, though, I should explain the two terms I’ve used. Royal flush is a poker hand. The best you can ever get. The skill is in the playing, but the distribution of the cards is just pure luck. That’s why you’ll not see the rare hands too often. Think of poker hands as being birds. The high cards and pairs you see all the time, same as you don’t have to go far to search for a pigeon or a magpie. But how often you seen a tawny owl in the city? I saw one once, in a bird display held in my local park. Saw one twice in the zoo. Well, I seen three tawny owls and three royal flushes in my time. That makes ‘em even.

  Think of a tawny owl as being a royal flush.

  And as for pocket rockets? All that means is the player was holding two aces, and you shouldn’t need for me to tell you aces hold the highest value in the deck. Pocket aces you maybe see once every two or three games. They’re sort of like your robin redbreast.

  Anyway, that’s enough info for the moment. The pocket aces won the hand and the cards were gathered up, they’re being shuffled right now in fact. One hand does not a game complete, which is handy for me since the guy took clear half my chips.

  Do you want me to explain poker to you actually? No? You cool with knowing what you know (or think you know) or not knowing at all? Sure. Just let me know if you do need anything else explaining. As I say, I’ll keep the technical talk light. (And, for that matter, who says I know anything anyway?)

  I look at the players while the hand’s being dealt. Six of us, as always. Three guys, three girls. Lots of drink. (Perhaps not the best thing to do while playing cards, but it’s an ingrained tradition for us now.) David, Henry, Arnold (he’s the one who just took all my chips), Nicky, Jenny and me. Won’t bore you with descriptions of them and what they do for a living and blah blah blah. Boring, just get the next hand dealt.

  Arnold starts dealing. At last. David and Arnold are still talking about football, slowing the deal. I bite my tongue this time. I have been known to ask people to not talk too much about football around the table since it slows up the game, but they don’t seem to like my opinion. The only opinion on football I have, to be honest. The only good football is a dead football, to paraphrase an ape.

  Cards dealt, I take a look at what I’m holding. Four of hearts and ten of diamonds. Rubbish. David raises it straight off, which means I can discard the hand and lean back. You see, the winners at poker are those who can read the other players, and sometimes it’s best to fold hands just to give you an opportunity to watch them. Not that anyone in their right mind would have played ten-four unsuited anyway.

  OK, I know I said no rules, but I figure I have to explain the basics in case you really don’t know your flushes from your trips.

  There are loads of different types of poker. We play Texas hold ‘em. No idea why it’s called that, don’t much care either. All I know is that I’m good at it, or so my back pocket tells me. My money never quite gets as far as my bank account. In Texas hold ‘em (which I call THE, being that it’s an acronym) each player is dealt two cards. You play with these, deciding whether it’s worth putting money on them. Once the first round of betting ends, you get five cards laid down on the table. These cards are called community cards and they’re there for everyone to use. The first three cards are laid (this is called the flop) and there’s a round of betting. The fourth is laid (called the turn), with another round of betting, and then the final card comes down (the river). One more round of betting and that’s it.

  Five cards on the table, two in front of you, and you have to make the best possible hand from them. Seven cards, but you can only use five. Any combination. Maybe two of your own, three from the table; one from your own, four from the table; or (rarely) all from the table.

  So I lied and gave you an info dump. I tried not to, but (again) don’t worry about it. The rules of the game aren’t nearly as important as the playing of it. If you haven’t got it all yet, you’ll pick it up along the way. (And there’s a lot more to it than that, believe me, but even info dumps can only get you so far.)

  By the way, I was once told you remember ten per cent of what you read and fifteen per cent of what you see, so you’ll have forgotten all those rules already.

  (And don’t bother Googling those per cents. I can’t remember the actual stats, so I made them up. They must have been part of the majority of things I read which I promptly forgot.)

  So, the others are playing and I’m watching them. Everyone has their own quirks, their own character traits about the table. Jennny’s thinking, tapping her lower lip with one finger. Henry’s shifting his weight uncomfortably. That means he’s got a good hand. Not sure about Jenny though.

  I’ll tell you something about tells. Tells are the backbone of poker. They’re the thing which can cripple a player if abused, but they can keep a player healthy so long as no one sees them. Everyone has tells, just as everyone has a backbone, but some players consciously hide them.

  Oh dear, I mentioned tells without explaining what they are.

  Assuming you’re still with me, I can only ask what you think a tell is? Come on, it’s pretty obvious when you think about it.

  Sorry, forgot some of you likely already play poker and know all about tells. Don’t mean to patronise you, just bear with me.

  Tells are little things which offer other players information. (They tell other players what you have, hence their being called tells.) There are some tells which are obvious, and some which are individual specific.

  For instance, when a player is dealt her initial two cards, there’s usually one quick look, then they’re back face down on the table so no one can see them. A player who keeps looking at them, especially after the community cards have come down, has a weak hand. That’s logical: someone with two aces in front of them can easily rem
ember that. If you have four-ten unsuited like I did you’re not gonna remember them so easily when you’re trying to see whether you’ve made anything.

  Another obvious tell is that a player with a good hand tends to hide her mouth with her hand. That’s to stop any smiles from showing.

  Conversely, a player who hides her eyes as well usually has a bad hand. It’s a sign of despair to hang your head and hide your eyes.

  Tells can be anything, there are millions of them. Real smiles are with the eyes, false ones with the mouth only. Some players tap their cards, others their feet. Henry, for instance, shifts uncomfortably when he has a good hand.

  I know some of my tells, and good players know them all. That way you can fool other players into thinking you have a good or bad hand. Which means Henry may be shifting uncomfortably right now because he’s trying to trick everyone.

  Which makes poker a very difficult game to play, and anyone who says it’s all luck really needs to understand the game better. Besides, the stats speak for themselves. Good players are millionaires, bad players are broke. Of course, there are ten bad players for every good one and a thousand good players for every really good one. And places like Vegas love the really good players. Players who come in for one night and walk away with a million dollars (ker-ching! $). Makes all the bad players think they can do that as well, which makes them lose far more money combined than the one really good player’s just walked out with.

  Oh, and betting strategies are similar to tells. Some people may make the same bluff bet all the time. I was told once I always bet ten chips when I’m bluffing, and it was true: I just hadn’t realised it. Thanks for the person who told me, because now that I know I bet ten when I’m bluffing, I can bet ten when I’m not and make everyone still think I am.

  And that works, trust me. (Or better yet try it yourself.)

  And let’s get this one out of the way first. Whenever I mention to people I play poker, the first reaction is, “Do you play strip poker?” Maybe it’s because I’m a gal, I got no idea, but anyway it’s not funny. Three girls and three guys we may be, but there’s not one of them around this table I’d care to see nude.

  David actually told me he gets that sometimes, so I’m assuming it’s not a sex-based thing. Still weird though when you think about it. I mean, you mention to a friend that you play poker and they instantly ask you whether you take your clothes off? It’s almost as though they’re checking first before they ask to join, and since no one asks to join when I tell them “No!” I can only assume it means they want to see me naked. Which is bizarre, since everyone who’s asked David that question has been a man (most of them married, apparently).

  Poker, like life, is very strange. But, you know what? I wouldn’t trade it for any other game.

  Nicky deals next, but again I’m forced to fold straight away. Nicky’s the youngest of our group – she’s only nineteen. I’m twenty-six, God knows how old everyone else is. David’s twenty-six, I reckon. I went to school with him and we were in the same class so he has to be the same age as me. Nicky’s young and exuberant and is happy pretty much all the time. I remember being nineteen and I miss it. Strange she spends every Thursday night playing with us, but then I guess it’s only one night a week. We were going to do Tuesdays but David has football practice. Lord knows what he’s practising for, it’s not like he’s going to turn pro or anything. Men and their football, never understood it.

  Now, poker’s different. In poker you win money if you’re good enough.

  “Gunners were rank last night,” David says, pulling a face.

  “Gooners, more like,” Arnold says. “Was nice seeing the Arsenal losing four nil though.”

  So sad that I actually know what they’re talking about.

  I spend that hand watching everyone again, then the deck’s passed to me. It’s a new deck, we only broke it tonight. I like a new deck, there’s nothing quite like fanning a new deck before your nose and closing your eyes as you inhale the heady aroma. Of course, it makes you look weird if you do it in public and you feel like a junkie if you do it in private, but it’s still nice.

  I don’t fan the deck as I shuffle. I just shuffle and deal. SAD, if you’re really into acronyms. David and Arnold are still wittering on about football, but it’s nice to see Nicky taking note of people’s mannerisms as they look at the cards they’re dealt. Nineteen years old and she knows the basics the others seem to have forgotten. No idea where she picked up the skill, probably saw it on telly late one night when she should have been out drinking, but it’s a habit she wants to cling onto.

  I look at my hand while she’s still examining the others. Finally I’m dealt something halfway decent: queen of hearts and jack of hearts. What we call suited connectors (because they’re the same suit and they’re next to one another in the sequence). There are some folds from people with bad hands and, by the time it gets to my turn in the betting, there’s only Nicky still in the hand. After me, David and Jenny still have to act, and I raise the pot. They both fold, leaving just me staring down Nicky, who calls my bet.

  Nice.

  I burn and turn, showing the first three community cards (the flop, if you remember from my garbled explanation before). Staring out at me is the queen of spades. Nice. Gives me a pair. Unfortunately the other two cards are the four of spades and the six of spades. If I add the community cards to my hand, I have one pair. The top pair, actually, since there’s nothing higher than a queen visible.

  Unfortunately, there are three spades on the table. If Nicky has a spade in her hand already, or two spades, or if another spade comes down as one of the final two community cards, I’m sunk.

  Nicky makes a bet and I fold. Maybe she had a spade, maybe she didn’t. Maybe a spade would have come out next and led her to a winning hand, maybe it wouldn’t have. The cards are gathered and the pack shuffled, which means we’ll never know.

  That’s the thing I love about poker: that it’s made up of might-have-beens. I was reasonably certain I folded the winning hand at the time, but I couldn’t take the risk of Nicky hitting something later. My only option other than folding was to re-raise her a huge amount: something that would cripple her stack if she risked it. Unfortunately, most of my chips were cleared out from losing the last hand I played, so I couldn’t afford to run the risk myself.

  But would I have won the hand had we played on? Who knows.

  You ever watch Deal or No Deal? You ever seen how the players compare the banker to a poker player? They say how he reads the players and makes his offers accordingly, right? So, for instance, if a player says “Oh, I really can’t accept anything less than five thousand because I need a new bathroom and it costs five grand,” the banker is guaranteed never to offer them five thousand.

  Well, the worst thing about Deal is that once you’ve said the magic words “Thank you, Mr Banker. That's a very kind offer: deal,” it then goes on to show you what you would have won. Poker doesn’t do that. If you make a strategic fold, even if you think you were winning (like I just did), you cut your losses and say, “Oh well, at least I end up with something.” On Deal, though, you then have to sit through the agony of slowly being shown what you could have won if you’d only gone on. Courage, they call it, but it’s not really. It’s more about calling the game at the right time, because the boxes (just like the cards in the deck) are all random.

  You see, the cards may be random, but it’s the canny player who knows when to call it a day.

  “What happened to your winning streak, Ash?” David asks as he deals. “Thought you were going to win the next ten games, wasn’t it?”

  I pull a face. “Three in a row’s going to have to be enough for me. Unless I can pull the comeback of the century.”

  Nicky laughs. “Somehow I don’t think the comeback of the century could have anything to do with poker.”

  “I don’t know,” David says. “Poker’s pretty important to some people.”

  “The people with the m
oney in the pot, that would be,” she replies.

  “You know what,” says David, “talking of comebacks, I reckon Spurs’ll be the ones to claim that title.”

  “And the comeback of the century could be about football?” I groan.

  “You may be right there, Dave,” Arnold cuts in. “They just signed that eighteen year old. What’s his name?”

  “Oh, I saw that. Yeah, uh, can’t think of it. Something stupid though.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Anyone see the paper this morning?” I ask suddenly.

  “What specifically?” David asks.

  “Nothing specifically. Just has to be more interesting than football.”

  It’s David’s turn to pull a wry face, but I think that has more to do with the hand he’s just been dealt. He tosses it aside without a second glance. “You should get into football, Ash,” he says. “Then you can join in the convo more.”

  “I prefer to play poker at the poker table,” I tell him. “Weird like that.”

  By now, the deck’s passed around a couple more players. I should say something about where we play, Lord knows I’ve gone on long enough about how we play. We have a room, a pretty large room in Arnold’s house. He’s lives with his girlfriend but doesn’t have any children. That means he gets to live in a house but we don’t have kids running around us, and we don’t have constant interruptions. The little woman knows not to disturb her fella while he’s losing money, after all. (And he usually does. He’s no doubt the worst of us.)

  We have a large round table. It’s just big enough to sit the six of us ‘round, as though it was designed with us in mind. We have a green cloth overlaid across the table. Some people see this as trite, but to be honest it stops the cards from skidding across when you deal and it makes less noise when you’re stacking your chips or rapping your knuckles on it. You rap your knuckles on the table when you check a hand, by the way (when you don’t want to bet but don’t have to because no one else has yet).