Poker

Last night I played poker at the Palais with Ando and Murray. Against a field of around 50, I finished 11th. And I did it with the best cards of my life.


On the first hand I got dealt pocket Aces, doubling up my chips against another player with Ace-King. Over the next two hours or so I got pocket pairs another six times. At one point, the player to my right made a comment about how many pocket pairs I had picked up, and I joked that the next time I got them, I would let him know by holding one of my pockets, and he could keep his chips. I then looked down to find myself with pocket Kings (or Cowboys, for those into the poker lingo), and picked up another few thousand in chips (I did not, as promised, hold my pocket).

After starting with 1,000 in chips, I peaked with 37,000 chips, at which point Murray and Ando assured me I was the chip leader for the tournament. At this point I lost half my chips in a bad beat though, and then the quickly rising blinds kind of necessitated another all in around 15 minutes later which I also lost.

I had a great time, since I got to play about 40-50% of the hands, and do some really agressive betting, but it made me wonder, if I couldn't win with the cards I had, would I ever? I think in those types of situations there really is the element of luck - the rising blinds mean you have to make moves, and even when you're the favourite pre-flop, you need everything to go your way on the all ins to get to a strong point on the final table. I went all-in on my final hand with King-Three for about 13,000 chips, which sounds like a dumb move, except next up I was going to be the big blind, and have to post a blind of 10,000 chips, which would have pretty much put me all in on whatever random hand I got dealt anyway . . .