Travels With the Camel

I would like to describe two hands to you, if I may. The first one was a four-card Omaha hand in a reasonably big cash game at the Vic in London. Dave Barnes, who may politely be called a "senior" member of the poker fraternity, held A-J-J-10 with a nutflush draw in hearts. A flop of J-6-2 with two hearts couldn't have fit his hand any better. A punter who held 6-6-7-8 felt his hand was better and stuck all of his cash in. Dave gladly accommodated him with a call. Disaster struck when the turn and river were a 9 and a 10 (with no hearts) to give the lucky man a huge pot with a straight.

A top Scandinavian player, better known to online poker buffs by his screen name, was playing the EPT main event in Copenhagen in January. Late on day one, he got all of his chips into a pot in great shape with K-K against A-Q suited. Again, the poker gods didn't smile on our hero, as an ace fell to knock the Scandinavian out of the event.

I have just checked the odds on CardPlayer.com's excellent poker odds calculator. Dave had a 92 percent chance of winning his hand when the majority of the money went in, whereas the Scandinavian would have won about 66 percent of the time.

But, the interesting fact for the casual observer of these two hands (that is, me) was the way the two players reacted to their ill fortune. Dave just tapped the table a couple of times and said, "Nice hand, mate." And then he carried on with the game. The Scandinavian didn't take defeat quite so equably, despite not being nearly such a strong favourite when the money went in. In fact, he acted like a spoilt 6-year-old girl whose mum refused to buy her a new Barbie. He slammed the table, threw his chair to the ground, and cursed and shouted. All in all, in my opinion, he acted terribly.

This isn't meant as an attack on the second player. I have never met him, and for all I know, he is a lovely chap. He is far from alone in taking victory or defeat at the poker table badly.

It seems a trait of the wiser-headed players to act more sensibly. One hand means nothing; it is just a mathematical occurrence, so leave the histrionics to the football players. I could give countless examples of more experienced players in the poker community who act well at the table: Alan McLean, Michael Arnold, Mickey Wernick, Stewart Reuben, Willy Tann, Ben Roberts, Peter Costa, and Vince Burgio. The list is long.

Perhaps they realise that what comes around goes around. It costs nothing to act with dignity in victory or defeat, and the only person who looks bad when you behave immaturely is not the player who outdrew you – it's you!

One of the sites I stumbled upon was www.barrygreenstein.com. I think it has been set up ostensibly to promote his upcoming book, but one section of the site in particular is fascinating.

I popped over to Amsterdam for a weekend last month. It somehow felt like being in school at half-term, as it was my first visit to the city outside Master Classics week.

Naturally, I popped into the casino to play a little limit hold'em. Disappointingly, there were only two games running, but they were extremely lively.

While playing, the poker manager had a quick word in my ear. He had read my column and told me that in the 2005 Master Classics, they would enforce the rule that if a player isn't in his seat when the last card is dealt, his hand will be declared dead.



Hoorah! Now, if only they could do something about the size of the characters on the cards …



Keith "The Camel" Hawkins is a well-known presence on the European poker scene, as he travels to most of the major tournaments from his home in Darlington. Poker is his work, but Keith's passion is Queens Park Rangers. Keith's regular poker blog can be found at http://www.camelpoker.blogspot.com/.