It is with a certain sense of inevitability that we arrive at Hold ‘em’s ultimate destination: the river card. Until the arrival of the final card, you won’t know for sure if the play will prove to a comedy or a tragedy. When it is the latter, you will usually find yourself against someone who lives by the river to such an extent he/she thinks such play will pay for a house facing the Thames.
The reality, of course, is that such appalling abuse of the probability laws will ultimately leave those players penniless and clinging, Canute-like, to their own self deception as they are overwhelmed by the tidal wave of skill.
However, the effect of the river card can occasionally make hardened pros feel like they have been ducked in bilge water and the stains can affect subsequent play. The trick is to see it coming. Unfortunately, that is the difficult part.
If we forget the yawn-inducing hands that are checked all the way, by the time you arrive at the river you will have invested a reasonable amount of your stack and for most of us that directly corresponds to emotional investment. You have probably been winning the hand all the way. The table is probably quaking under the weight of half your stack. You are already thinking about how to spend the money.
Suddenly, another player called Socrates puts the rest of his cash in. What the hell? Your ability to think logically is poisoned by the knowledge that your money is on the table and Socrates may be executing a rash bluff. It can be so hard to form an accurate appraisal of Socrates. So much may be unknown. That’s the problem. You call. You lose. He teaches you a lesson. (And historians still think it is unclear how he made his money.)
Until you understand that the real skill at poker is the separation of logic from emotion, you might be lucky in love but not at cards. No other moment tests your emotional control as much as the slap of the river card.
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