Mr. Brooks and the Two Jacks

In the old days before he moved to Texas and started playing in our Dallas game, Bob Brooks had run all of the gaming in Anchorage, Alaska. He was only about 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed 185 pounds, but they say that Bob could put one roughneck under each of his arms and toss them out of his club in Alaska. He was older when he played with us in Dallas, but he was still in good shape. He gained a lot of respect from us, so we always called him "Mr. Brooks."

Mr. Brooks played real tight poker, and we knew all of his moves. One night, Charlie Hendricks, a known gambler around Texas at that time, came to play with us in our no-limit hold'em game. He and Mr. Brooks were playing in a five-way pot, and Mr. Brooks just flat-called from the small blind. Now it was time for Charlie to act from the big blind. He looked down and found two jacks in the hole.

"Well, I can win this pot right now," he said to himself. "They've all limped in, so I'll put in a raise because I just know that I've got the best hand." Charlie raised about $400, everybody passed, and then it got around to Mr. Brooks in the small blind. He moved all in.

Now Charlie thinks to himself, "I've gotta have the best hand. Mr. Brooks would never have just flat-called with a big hand here in the small blind." But we all knew Mr. Brooks. He was sitting there with pocket aces and had been playing a trap the whole time – he didn't care about winning just $25 from each person. We all were laughing at the table, because it was the first time that Charlie had come to Dallas to play with us, and he didn't know how Mr. Brooks played. Nobody else at that table would have called with two jacks, but Charlie put in his money real fast and went broke to Mr. Brooks.

I once played a hand with Mr. Brooks in a side game when I had two eights. I made a little token raise with them, and he and another player both called the raise. The flop came 8-8-4.

When you flop quads, it is customary to check, check, check, hoping that somebody will catch up with you so that you can win a little something, but I decided to lead with the hand and bet $200 on the flop. Mr. Brooks called.

On fourth street, a deuce came. I bet $1,000 and he called that, too. A 10 came on the end, I bet $2,500, and Mr. Brooks moved in on me. He had pocket tens and had filled on the river. Because I had led at the pot with a huge hand, I made about $10,000 on the hand. If I had checked it all the way to the river, Mr. Brooks would have made a little bet on the end and I would have raised him. Then, he would have either called me or made a small raise, because there wouldn't have been enough money in the pot for him to put any real money in on the end. It was very hard to get any money out of Mr. Brooks. The way the hand worked out was just perfect for me.

In Dallas, when a player used to show down his hand and say, "I've got one small pair," it usually was two queens! How things have changed.

Editor's note: The winner of four World Series bracelets, T.J. Cloutier is the co-author (with Tom McEvoy) of Championship No-Limit and Pot-Limit Hold'em, Championship Omaha, and Championship Hold'em, all of which are available through Card Player. Visit the web at www.pokerbooks.com for more details.