Thanksgiving Turkeys

BY: Ashley Adams
Contact at: (Asha34@aol.com)
Author of Winning 7-Card Stud

I had a late night stud poker session on Thanksgiving. Most of the players at the table were either degenerate gamblers or, at the very least, sleepy from the copious quantities of triptophan in their turkey. This makes for what should be easy pickings. The key was patience.

The three $20/40 stud games that were going when I arrived at Foxwoods were full. I played $10/20 stud for four hours, receiving roughly 100 hands. Of those, literally 95 were completely unplayable. I had two hands that I tried to steal with. Both times I was unsuccessful - backing off when my opponents showed aggression on Fourth Street. Sometimes bluffs don't work.

Three hours into my session I got my first legitimate hand: (JhJd)Qd. Two players called the bring-in and I completed to $10. I got two calls. I hit a third Jack on fourth. One guy paired his 10 doorcard. He bet. I raised - a deceptive raise to be sure since it looked like I might be raising on the come with a straight draw or raising to test whether he had the trip 10s. He raised me back and I just called, figuring I'd get the extra bets in when the limits doubled.

On Fifth he bet, I raised and he called. On Sixth he checked, I bet, and he called. Same on the River. I won over $100 on that hand. I had another similar hand near the end of the night. I started with split Aces, bet it out the whole way; it turned into Aces up, and I won a three-way contested hand with two calling stations. Yay me!

Bottom line: in spite of only having 5 playable hands (including two bluffing hands) I managed to win $147 for the four hours of play. I figured that had I been less patient I easily could have called at least the bring-in with half of those hands. 50 hands, $3 a hand for the bring-in. That's $150 - destroying my win completely. My patience paid off.

Of course you might argue that I might have won some of those hands that I folded. True, I might have. I might have gotten really lucky on fourth street and had passive opponents who let me see a couple of cards cheaply - letting me hit two miracle cards to give me a powerhouse by fifth street. Still, there's an equally good chance that I might have improved just enough to come in second best - having started with inferior holdings.

As it was, I stayed out of trouble and avoided depleting my stack with sub-par calls. This reinforced the lesson I had learned many times before. Your bottom line at the end of the night reflects not just the pots you contested and won but the money saved by not contesting the pot with inferior holdings.

Two nights later and I decided to go down again. The crowd was, curiously, very similar. Maybe the Saturday after Thanksgiving is more popular for shopping than for going to a casino. No matter. I again couldn't find a seat in $20/40 stud and so played $10/20.

My experiences mimicked my Thanksgiving Day ones. I played very tightly, got no cards for a long stretch, won one pot for over $100, and left an $80 winner for the five hours work. I should point out that the structure of $10/20 favors this tight style more than $20/40 - since $10/20 has much less in the pot to start relative to the initial bet. Even so, I viewed the money saved from just "calling along" on Third to be the money I earned at the end of the night.

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