Dances with Pirates

I was delighted to find myself back in Amsterdam recently. It’s one of my personal favorite places in the whole wide world — and no, not for that reason, or that other reason, either. I love it for the poker, specifically as played at the Holland Casino on Max Euweplein, not at all far from places where you can get involved in that reason, or that other reason, or both.

The poker room is not beautiful. It’s stuck in a corner of the basement with about 20 tables jammed in under a low ceiling, and though a renovation of some sort seems to be in progress, from where I sit (sat), it’s way overdue. Still, I love to play there because the Dutch are such fierce and interesting players. Some are among the canniest, toughest, most fearless players I’ve ever met. They have an elan all their own, as made clear to me on my first visit to the Holland Casino many years ago when a tablemate explained, “The thing you must understand about the Dutch is that we are all either farmers or pirates.”

Now, on that visit so long ago, I got hammered — hammered! — and I thought I was a pretty good player back then. Well, I wasn’t as good as the Dutch. On subsequent visits, I’ve done better, but I confess that walking into this particular poker room, I’ve always felt a tad (or even more than a tad) fearful. Lately, though, my game has been undergoing a transformation, due largely to my constant and repeated exposure to Decide to Play Great Poker, which continues to yield new treasures on every rereading, and continues to reshape my approach to the game. So, last night I confidently checked my fear at the door (along with my hat and hoodie, neither of which are allowed in Dutch casinos).

I had my choice of games. I could either play in a €2-€2 blind no-limit hold’em game with a maximum buy-in of €400, or a €5-€5 blind game with a cap of €1,000. (I should point out that since I’m talking Euros, you can multiply those numbers by roughly 1.4 to get the U.S. dollar equivalent.) I could tell at a glance that the €5-€5 game was formidable — all those pirates — and that I’d definitely be better off playing €2-€2. Clearly that was the safer choice, and possibly, in terms of pure expected value, the more profitable one. Certainly I’m the one who’s always saying, “Don’t challenge strong players, challenge weak ones. That’s what they’re there for.” However, I was feeling my oats, so I took a seat in the bigger game, reminding myself that there was no reason I couldn’t beat tough players. I just had to play tough, too.

I want to tell you about two hands that illustrate my greater sense of presence in the game these days. In the first hand, I picked up pocket kings in early position. Knowing that I could expect a raise from one of the pirates behind me, I just limped. I don’t normally do this, but I felt like a limp-reraise could probably get all of my money in good against pocket queens, pocket jacks, A-K, or even A-Q; it was that kind of game. Sure enough, I matched my kings against queens and doubled my stack — but that’s just one hand of poker, no big deal.

The thing is, though, it created awareness in the pirates’ minds that I might limp-reraise with my big pocket pairs. So then this other hand came up. I was in the cutoff position with A-J offsuit, and a straddle was on (€10 to go), when an unexpected limpede broke out. I mean, it was called in five places before it got to me. That was very unusual for this game. I figured I could join the party and maybe catch lucky, so I called. The button called, the small blind called, and the big blind, the friskiest and raisiest pirate of them all, bumped it to €125. My first thought was, “That’s a big squeeze-play.” My second thought ways, “Guess I’ll have to fold.” However, my third thought was, “Why not resteal?” And this is big news! It’s big news because I’ve never been the kind of player who makes bold plays against tough players — I’ve always just stayed out of their way. I’m not even saying that staying out of good players’ way is a terrible idea, I’m just saying that in this case, given the current state of my game, and given that this guy was capable of squeezing with anything or nothing, I thought a reraise was in order. So when it was folded around to me, I made it €400 to go.

Everyone folded back to the pirate, who gave me a long, long look. The funny thing is, I knew exactly what he was thinking: He put me on a big pocket pair. He remembered my earlier limp-reraise, and he knew he should probably fold, since he’d have to play the rest of the hand from out of position. However, his ego wouldn’t let him do it. (This is a hole in the play of many of these pirates; their egos take them places their wallets shouldn’t go.) When he finally called, I was pretty sure that he had either a set-mining pocket pair or an ace looking to hit and take me off my kings or queens. The flop came Q-x-x, a complete whiff for me, but likely a complete whiff for him, too. When he checked, I had to bet — had to! — otherwise he’d bet me off the hand on the turn for sure. Checking behind is coward poker; I don’t do that anymore. Thanks to Decide, I don’t surrender the lead without a damn good reason, and I wasn’t about to surrender it here.

So, I bet half the pot, he folded, ho-hum, next case.

Folks, I ironed out the slackjaws that night, beat ‘em up pretty good, but this column is not intended as a boast. Rather, it’s to remind you and me that no matter how good we think our play is, there’s an unlimited ceiling above us. All we have to do is study the game, really work on our skills, and, especially, keep our minds open to the prospect of a real paradigm shift. I got mine from Decide. You’ll get yours from wherever, but go after it. Keep getting better.
There’s a pirate in you just waiting to get out. ♠