Tick

“No other species anywhere in the world had invented boredom[...] that strange ability to think “How dull. I wonder what happens if I bang this rock on that head?””

Thankfully, Terry Pratchett addresses his boredom by writing novels and Thief of Time is the 26^th set in Discworld. The plot revolves around the construction of the perfect glass clock, craved by The Auditors, a group of supernatural clipboard holders, because it will freeze time and enable them to eradicate humanity's unpredictability.

When (the personification of) Death learns of the plan he sends his granddaughter, Susan, on a thwarting mission. The news of the clock also reaches a valley which is partly populated by the History Monks, one of whom, Lu-Tze, has experience of such a device's power and is keen to block its construction.

Thus, with all of elements of the screwball plot in place, Pratchett uses it to riff on the nature of time and relativity. The novel is stronger on philosophy than character or plot. Its comedy is gentle rather than tear inducing, although the description of Susan's classroom is excellent as is the satire of martial art movie tropes. The reader also discovers that death by chocolate really is a possibility.

Although it is not his best and not an ideal entry point for a new discoverer of the Discworld, Pratchett's voice is unique. He is incapable of writing a bad novel and long may he alleviate his boredom by treating us to the fruits of his imagination.

Before I Boarded A Train

This is a thriller that should be bought only if the reader has a particular diversionary need in mind.

As it is essentially a three-handed epistolary novel in which the events take place in a handful of locations it is not, despite the suggested questions at the back, suitable for a book club, particularly if the other readers are prone to comments such as “I wish I had the bravery to buy cushions like that”.

Nor is it ideal for a sufferer of SAD who is looking for a novel to help him through a Tuesday evening in November because the story does not fully engage the intellect. It could, therefore, make the sufferer feel worse as he might to start to question his decision making.

However, its short sentences and punchy style make it close to ideal for readers who are facing a journey and, for whatever reason, crave an easy to read distraction. I read half of it whilst I was lightly toasted on a Saturday evening train from Birmingham and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I'd say it was the perfect thriller to buy at Birmingham New Street station at 8pm on a Saturday night.

Footnotes

I was attacked in bed at 3am. It was unexpected, vicious and there were no witnesses.

The previous evening a friend had related an anecdote in which a colleague displayed a cool head in testing circumstances. When my friend said, “You stay very calm”, he responded “I do.....but I have a big fucking mortgage. And the other guy's a bell-end”

I have been described as having a “relaxed attitude to life.” That fact is, I don't. I'm just aware that there is a time and place to call someone a “bell-end”. Moreover, as I recently learned in a dog-grooming parlour, some self-censorship is necessary: banging on about arthritis does not make the listener want to shag you.

However, in the aftermath of my recent attack I felt like spewing out “bell-end” at everyone and saw the social value in describing pain. I felt like I had earned the right to bore the shit out of people. The pain made me feel like taking a coping saw to my big toe and working until I was blinded with bone dust. I was attacked by gout and I have discovered that it is “one of the best Antidotes against Stoical Opinions.”

There are those who argue that pain is the route to self-improvement. In 1777, after being hit by a runaway horse, the philanthropist John Brown wrote: "Do me good, oh God! By this painful affliction may I see the great uncertainty of health ease and comfort that all my Springs are in Thee."

There may be something in that. I certainly think that finding yourself in extreme pain can award you profound insight into the state of your relationship. I can also add that gout was literally my wake up call to take a long hard look in the mirrored door of the bathroom medical cabinet and ask myself “WHERE THE FUCKING HELL ARE THE PAINKILLERS?”

It took me half an hour to discover the house was a pill-free zone. The attack rendered me incapable of walking. I was reduced to crawling around my bedroom like an inchworm. I had carpet burns on my chin. The stairs? Fuck you, no: I'm not sharing that experience. Perhaps when we get to know each other better. Or you get gout.

I've yet to see a non-sufferer look sympathetic when you tell him that you have attacks of gout. I, too, was guilty of mockery. I would have delighted at the idea of a TV-show called “Bouts of Gout”,in which two sufferers are put in a pebbled arena and zombie-shuffle towards each other before going toe-to-toe.

The winner? Treat him to a soothing swing in a hammock and cover him with Labrador puppies. The loser? Send out a nicotine-starved stage-chimpanzee armed with a rubber dildo. Have him knuckle-dash towards the terror-stricken contestant. Watch, awe-struck, as he pounds the loser's toe with simian zest. Listen to the pan-hoot drown out the howls of pain. Applaud the naked ape. Buy the branded dildo. Accessorise it with sweetcorn.

The misfortunes of others are often borne with equanimity. Larkin put it brilliantly:

“Yours is the harder course I see; on the other hand, mine is happing to me.”

In the case of gout, the depth of the amusement is, partly, the legacy of class anxiety. If we delve back in history, to a time when the medical profession was still performing trepanning and other surgeries without anaesthetic, we find plenty of petite-bourgeoisie that were ecstatic when they could proclaim “I have gout”.

Folklore deemed gout a disease of the “better sort, a superiority tax, a celebrity complaint “fit for a man of quality.” Gout was the “distemper of a gentleman” whereas the rheumatism was the distemper of a hackney coachman.”

To say you had gout was to imply that you could afford an extravagant lifestyle and you hobbled through the corridors of power. It gained such an association with the indulgence of alcohol and rich rood that, now, if you tell someone you suffer from gout, they are likely to assume that you are a person of congenital idleness, rancid morals and general worthlessness.

It is true that you are more likely to have an attack if you are over forty, male, a heavy-drinker, overweight and idle. I'm two of those things, the ones that I can't address. (Technically, I could change one of the two but I don't fancy that assignment.) I don't have a six-pack but I'm not overweight. I drink, but not that heavily. I idle, but it's not, to my knowledge, a sobriquet.

Gout can just hit you if you have a build up of uric acid and it causes the kind of pain that, if I were of a certain age, might make me consider assisted death. (Given attitudes to gout, I would probably end up using “Indignitas” and find myself gently trundling down a cliff on a wheeled commode whilst watching my lover perform a “Look Ma, no hands!” sex act on her lover, all to the tune of “My Way.” )

Eighteen hours after the start of the attack, I had to call 111. The surges of pain made me my think my foot was going to explode and I was enfeebled to an extent that I couldn't perform my inchworm manoeuvre. I was prescribed painkillers and colchicine, a drug that gets rid of the uric acid but dumps you with diarrhoea before you have regained the ability to haul-ass at a functional rate. Yes, fuck you again, that is another anecdote involving stairs I'm not sharing.

Seven days later, I could stand. It made me want to dance. I couldn't, of course, but after a week in which I had sacrificed a social trip to London, a chance to meet friends whom I had not seen for many months and everyone's casual mobility provoked a desire to shout insults, unassisted standing nearly made me want to kiss “bell-ends.”

And Bring Someone With You

A year ago today, my dad died.

At approximately 5am, he said “That’s ok, you’re just doing your job” to a hospital nurse who had apologised in case her duties had woken him. 

He was eighty-four, an active maths tutor, a keen swimmer, a husband and father of five. He had been referred to the hospital by the chiropodist because he had no feeling in the fourth toe of his right foot, a concern as he had type two diabetes. After investigation, the doctors had concluded the toe would have to be amputated. Not pleasant, but not life threatening. 

At approximately 6am, my mum received a call from the hospital: Your husband is very poorly. Come right away. And bring someone with you.

Confused, she called my sister, who drove her to the hospital. There, they met the duty sister. She fluffed her delivery, mangling the message that my sister had decoded but my mum had yet to comprehend.

“You mean he’s dead?”

He died of a myocardial infarction at a time between 5am and 6am. 

At 8am, I received a phone call from my eldest brother: “Are you sitting down?”

Approximately two hours later I was in a taxi, my eye caught by the driver’s mirror as it had an air freshener that stated “World’s Best Dad.”

When I arrived at the hospital, my mum’s first words to me were “We didn’t expect this, David, did we?”

I’d just seen what we didn’t expect. 

The last time I saw him alive he was waiting to be X-rayed.  My mum and I had just said goodbye to him but as we walked out I glanced over my shoulder. He grinned and gave me a high thumbs up. Everything was going to be ok.

    

Eighteen hours later, directed by my eldest brother, I joined my mum, my sister and aunt, in a tiny room, just outside the ward, the bad news room, the room of shattered lives. I went from an unexpected end to the start of the unimaginable. As Iris Murdoch put it, “Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved.”  

As we sat, sipping tea and breaking down, my other brother and sister were making the journey from London. They arrived at about 2.30 and we went to Bluebell House, the hospital’s mortuary. We walked in and my mum let out a cry, her face contorted by anguish, “I don’t think I can do this.” 

I do not know how she has done what she has done this last year: the person most gravely affected by the bereavement has been the one who has displayed the greatest mental health. Bereavement tests everybody’s maturity: on many occasions this year I have failed; she has not faltered at all.  

She, wisely, I think, spends time at home, keeping herself busy, maintaining the rooms they inhabited, the places in which she can, if she chooses, populate with my father. Grief has not made her a hermit: her weekly routine is structured around, as it was before, lunches out with her friends; but annual or seasonal rituals that she would have attended with my dad seem now to provoke uncertainty. 

They are occasions in which she has to sit, in company, conscious of her massive amputation. Gone are the in-jokes and the shared facial expressions at moments of social intrigue that have been a near lifelong staple of her experience of the communal dining table. No longer can she offer her goodbyes, return home and digest the event with my dad. No more combining memories to validate the other’s experience and cement each other’s identity.   

She, we, didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. He didn’t hear “you have months to live”, he didn’t glimpse his coat being held by the eternal footman, he just died. Apparently, he’d expressed a wish “to go on the dance floor” and years ago, his doctor, had told my dad, while clicking his fingers “You’ll go out like a light.”

He had multiple health issues that were masked by his energy and his charisma. We, the offspring, know now that he would have been on kidney dialysis from early this year, facing death by dimmer switch. 

I knew his preference but, in the dark days of bereavement, I wondered, pointlessly, if it is preferable, in the context of the ultimate double bind, to have the chance to spend time with him, knowing the sand is trickling away, or to be surprised by the smashed hourglass. 

There were plenty of times during the six months following his death that I really, really, felt the pain of the broken glass. On such occasions, my mind was a snake pit.  Grief contaminated my thoughts, sometimes causing poisoned outbursts at undeserving people, sometimes leading to feelings of intense self loathing.

It was during one of the latter bouts that I served a brunch for four people that included cold mushrooms and insipid scrambled eggs.   My head screamed:

”You can’t even do that David, can you?”,

to which another internal voice rejoined, 

“What’s this? Thinking about your own inadequacies, when your father died just a few days ago? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

In the evening, a plastic bag I was carrying split and four cans of lager tumbled onto the street. There has not been a time in my when I have hated myself more.  

A feeling of lacking control percolated in such a manner that caused damaging examinations of past behaviour, in which my actions now appeared to be inexcusable, incompetent and insensitive. It was also the start of the “What If?” narratives, of which there were to be many, but they all shared the same need to punish, to blame, berate - myself, institutions, the world.   

Scared by the intensity of these feelings, I tried to maintain a poker face, thus depriving loved ones of the chance to offer me consolation and, at times, appearing dispassionate. An anguished person sometimes needs to see a genuine reflection of feeling in the face of a family member. Sometimes, looking at me, my family didn’t see it and that can lead to intense anger, as the other seems to be an emotional tourist, not a true member of the tribe.

Consequently, I suspect that there were times when I damaged, temporarily, relationships with my siblings. My poker face was a misguided attempt to have a sense of control when everything seemed chaotic. I was so desperate to clutch at something I could control that I offered to be acting executor of my father’s will.

The experience of going through his paperwork was the opposite of that staple of fiction, the discovery of a proverbial hatbox containing a cache of letters: he had been self controlled, responsible and authentic. Everything I was not. My respect for him grew. 

Through clipping his passport, sending back his driver’s licence, seeing almost thirty-five years of his medical history I, over time, accepted the extinguishing of his light.  By contemplating the darkness, I was forced to stop my psychological shadow boxing and began to fully grieve.

Just over three months later, all of the post death tasks were complete. The estate had been released and my dad’s ashes were buried, in a rose garden, by the roots of a Joie De Vivre.  It is then that my sense of time started to be become less muddled. During the immediate aftermath, when I was trying to come to terms with the disappearance of one of the greatest sources of consistency in my life, my sense of past, present and future were all over the place.  I developed a firsthand understanding of how a middle aged person could develop obsessive compulsive disorder: Amidst chaos, small routines can bring comfort and a sense of control.

Existing rituals have a permanently altered texture, as I discovered on my birthday. I visited the Joie De Vivre with my mum and brother. It was a warm, beautiful day. I felt a sadness that I would not wish away, the sadness that is part of being bereaved.    

Bereavement creates many new anniversaries, the biggest of which occurs today. I hope we can create a ritual of remembrance. I hope it will draw a straight line from the past to present to the future and celebrates his life.   

It was a life that was full of warmth, engagement and fun.  One of the last things I heard him say, on the thirteenth of September, as he was getting in a chair, wearing a towelled robe and about to be wheeled to the orthopaedic X-ray department, was, as he rolled his shoulders, “We’ll take him in the fifth, Rocky.”

Baggage

Packing bags should be classified as an emotionally high risk activity by [the] Department of Psychology.

A Battle for the Soul

I am a recovering nerd.

I am trying my best to make progress but the road to rehabilitation is long and beset on all sides by the inequities of the elfish and the tyrannies of evil students.

I have tried many methods to erase my nerdiness:

I have listened to gangsta-rap, developed a minor interest in gridiron and have seriously contemplated purchasing a Stadium Pal;

but still I feel stained by my adolescence.

Recovering nerds constantly have to police their thoughts in order to stifle any sign of regression. It is the self monitoring equivalent of kettling - i.e. it batters down any sense of deviancy - but sometimes the ideas cannot be bludgeoned and one's inner nerd temporarily takes over.

Recently I was watching the adaptation of The Da Vinci Code.*

After about seventy minutes I could not shake the notion that I was watching a particularly well-plotted game of Dungeon & Dragons.

Everything seemed to be in place:

the leading characters were dragged along by the plot and their actions made no difference to the outcome;

when seemingly at a loss, they would -

a) discover a hitherto overlooked clue

b) be assisted by a timely intervention from a badly drawn supporting character or,

c) appear to make a "saving throw" against certain death.

The dialogue was worse than the improvised efforts that we shouted when my friends and I wasted far too many weekends sitting around a pool table - Sorry! - anxiously standing guard outside The Crag of Xianworth - wondering how to slay The Crimson Legion (how's that for a Freudian nightmare?) without squashing the Chewits.

If you think that is a bold claim, here is a random selection of lines from the screenplay:

"Yes, and the more penises you have, the higher your rank."

"It is information from a man only known as.........the teacher."

"You, cripple. Put the keystone on the table."

"I've got to get to a library.....Fast."

I know the feeling, Tom.

The more I was exposed to this drivel, the more I felt myself being pulled back to the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide. My only chance was to seek out knowledge borne of more rational minds,** so I paused the DVD and spent ten minutes reading a newspaper.

By the time I restarted the film I felt sufficiently grounded that I could listen to - "You will not succeed. Only the worthy can unlock the stone." - without suffering an existential spasm.

By the time the DVD finished, I was in a state of inner peace. I had realised it could not have been a Dungeons & Dragons game as the film had a lower sense of character development.

Maybe screenwriter Akiva Goldsman should buy the latest update for the D&D Character Builder.

In bad news for my recovery, it is now number 2 on my wish list.

It has supplanted "shag."

*The post could have ended here and the point would still have been made.

** Note that the nature of this action dooms the recovery to failure. When presented with a challenge to his world view, a nerd takes solace from fact.***

***How many nerds does it take to change a light bulb? Any number, but the change has to be logged in a notebook.****

****Presumably when the effin' light is back on.

Lowered Eyebrows

The reason that there has not been as many posts in Feb is because the gaming site that I write for has asked me not to post the poker articles here, as they want search engines to find their site.

Fair enough.

If you are still interested in reading the poker articles, and can access gaming sites from work, you will find them here: http://www.eurolinx.com/en/Poker/DavidCorner.aspx

I'll also add a link in the margins in the next few days.

There might still be the occasional poker piece that is not submitted to Eurolinx that makes its way onto these pages but the posts will probably be non-gaming for the foreseeable future.

In the next few days, I'll start a new Scripting and Drifting column (for a new screenplay - sadly, I made a dog's dinner of the other one) and there will be plenty of other bits and pieces to keep the site active.

This Just In...

(News from other sources)

Scientists have announced that they have now discovered there is a gene responsible for shyness.

They would have found it sooner but it was hiding behind another gene.

Poker on TV

Unfortunately, it is going to be a while until I notice any poker improvements through meditation, although I’m already aware of a heightened sense of self when I strike my hand-beaten Tibetan singing bowl with my dong. However, just because I’m still in the departure lounge of my journey to inner peace does not mean that I can’t find a topic to blog about.

You may have noticed that the site has had a funky new makeover and now allows readers to comment on my ramblings. Therefore, to mark this epoch defining moment, I will attempt to start a discussion about poker on TV.

This morning, I read the following comment in the sports section of my national newspaper:

‘[Poker is] a televised’ sport’ about as diverting as The Deer Hunter after the Russian roulette has been edited out. If I wanted to look at scrawny men with cadaverous complexions wearing sunglasses to compensate for the fact they are called Keith, I would have a day out in Filey.’

He has a point, particularly as one of the unique attractions listed for Filey, a small town in North Yorkshire, England, is ‘walking’. How can poker on TV compete with that?

Last night I watched a UK broadcast that featured twelve top players. It is presented in a league format: each competitor plays in six heats and their finishing position awards them points. After all players have competed, the top four automatically progress to the final table and those in fifth to eighth play two heads up knockout matches for the remaining two seats. It is about as good as televised poker gets and yet it is still pretty poor. Although it features some of the celebrities of poker, most of them will never inspire admiration in the neutral. Consider this:

The show featured Phil Hellmuth, a man who appears to have almost as many personality disorders as he does WSOP bracelets, heads up against Roland De Wolfe. I admire both players – they are talented and have massive quantities of inner belief – but is any non-poker player capable of enjoying the head to head?

In the final hand, PH (I think the initials on his baseball cap indicate ‘Personal Hell’) uncharacteristically called RDW’s pre-flop all in bet when the former held KT. De Wolfe had AQ, the flop helped neither player. The turn was also a blank. Just before the dealer flipped the river card Hellmuth said, ‘I apologise in advance’. The last card was, of course, a king.

Hellmuth looked unbearably smug. To compound the situation, the co-commentator and gifted pro, JC Tran, remarked, ‘That’s what you call instinct right there. He felt it coming.’

No, Tran, it isn’t: it is just luck coupled with arrogance. I suspect any rational non-poker player will conclude the same, turn off and try to erase the image of Hellmuth’s grin.

The example is, I think, the key part of the problem that poker faces: to applaud heroes, the spectators have to believe that the triumph is deserved and reached through hard work. Television, in most cases, will struggle to present such an image of poker. Moreover, it doesn’t help that a lot of players reach the top because they are crocodile-skinned and unemotional. They don’t make good TV.

What is the answer? Is there one? I welcome any conjurers out there in the blogosphere to try to pull a rabbit out of a hat and suggest some ideas. I’ll be right here, listening to chakra music and chanting ‘Om’.

Joining the Dots

It would not be a huge exaggeration to say I have had one of the weirdest seventy-two hours of my life. I’d love to tell you about it. However, this is a family site with a cuddly image so unfortunately I will have to restrict myself to writing about the latest experiment in stress reduction.

Just to recap, we have already deduced:

1. A bit of stress is beneficial as it can make you play in the optimum zone, as long as your heartbeat stays within acceptable limits.
2. Howard Lederer uses teachings from Zen Buddhism to keep himself calm at the table and is moderately successful. (It is mostly in the breathing.)

All this and more has been covered in a ‘few must read’ posts from last week. I suggest you take a second to glance at them as there is a chance that they will change your life in ways that, just three days ago, I didn’t think were possible.

Are you back?

Good.

Welcome to the meditation tent.

Pull up a bean bag and spark up an oil burner. It is now time for some teachings from Managing Stress, written by Terry Looker & Olga Gregson, members of the International Stress Management Association and genuine good eggs.

Their book comes with five ‘Biodots’ and a ‘colour interpretation chart’. It was with these particular toys that I had the most bloggable fun during the weekend.

The Biodots are ‘small self adhesive, temperature sensitive discs that are placed to measure skin temperature.’ Basically, when your body is experiencing stress, your skin temperature dips due to a decreased amount of blood flow. By measuring this, the dots change colour depending on your stress level (and other factors): when you are lying on a sun-kissed beach listening to Mozart, the dot will be a reassuring dark blue but if, a few hours later, you find yourself in a long queue at a self service restaurant that is running out of cooked food, the dot will be a murky brown. The two poles are either ‘very relaxed’ or ‘very tense’. I decided to give the Biodots a trial.

I set out a plan: wear the dot for two hours before a poker session, play for four hours, and then keep it on for a further three hours. That way I would acquire some knowledge of my normal levels, how I was affected during the game and how long it took it me to relax.

When I first placed the Biodot on my wrist, I was annoyed that it registered ‘unsettled.’

I muttered ‘Oh sh*t.’

It then registered ‘tense.’

Time to go for a walk.

By the time I was ready for poker, it had changed to ‘calm’, the third most relaxed state of the seven on the card. I had still not achieved ‘very relaxed’ and had noticed that when I stopped at a coffee shop, I became ‘involved.’ Maybe my body was more wired than I had thought. Regardless, it was time to go to work.

After the first two hours of my day job, I was moderately ahead and had played few big hands. I felt fairly calm and was gently reassured that my sensitive friend still thought I was ‘involved.’ If only they worked in relationships: had an ex-girlfriend used a dot that informed me she was ‘unsettled’, my home might still feature fresh flowers.

It was during the third hour that my bankroll suffered its first major wilting of the session. I was dealt AA under the gun and raised to four times the big blind. The player to my left flat called. I always hate that as it makes it far more likely that other call stations will want to peek at the flop. They did. In total, four players called and I was first to act after a rasping flop of A-6-8, two hearts. My dot told me I was ‘tense’; my head told me that I was about to stack.

The dot had it.

Another player flopped a set of eights and two others had the flush draw. Only one jester who saw the flop did not put all of his or her cash into the middle. When the third heart landed on the river, I saw a huge pot go to a comedian who had called my raise with K-5 of hearts. I didn’t really need the dot to inform me I was now ‘very tense’ – my fingers were practically embedded in the table and my laptop was covered with spit.

Needless to say, I had a drier screen before my Biodot registered a change. I was gradually able to retrieve my departed Euros but, at the end of the session, I was still ‘tense’. I found that interesting.

I was not aware of any symptoms of stress and yet, according to the dot, I still had not fully recovered from the big pot. The Biodot was an outward manifestation of tilt. I have always known that every player suffers from tilt, but I had always thought I had developed reasonable coping strategies. The Biodot disagreed. I have work to do.

One of the techniques mentioned in ‘Managing Stress’ is meditation. In the name of relaxation, better poker, and writing that tries desperately hard to be original and funny, I intend to give it a whirl.

I don’t I think I need to meditate but I will see what happens.

Is that you on my effin’ beanbag?

Lederer and Zen

Welcome back to David’s Corner and another ill-conceived ramble about poker.

Regular readers, and some other members of my family, may recall that I posted this a few days ago:

‘I will give some serious thought to how to manage stress at the table and will attempt to devise a proper inoculation program.’

Christ.

I have since made plenty of notes and some of them are not warnings against making bold promises on the blog.

I thought it would be a good idea to gather some wisdom to help me along the path to poker glory and so my first stop was at The Professor’s library.

Howard Lederer, winner of two WSOP bracelets, acquired his intellectual nickname because of his cerebral style at the tables. He also exudes the kind of calm that you simply cannot buy from street corner purveyors of un-prescribed medication. I was curious to know how he does it.

Apparently, he attributes his relaxed approach to Zen Buddhism. On his blog, he specifically mentions ‘Zen in Art of Archery.’ As luck would have it, I bought a copy a few years ago but had never felt sufficiently curious to read it. I think I bought it to impress a girl. However, I was intrigued by Lederer’s comment:

‘How is it possible to stay mindful of the hand when if you win this tournament it could might your life? I believe the study of the Zen arts can lead you down that path.’

It was clearly time to put on my sandals and take a stroll.

I soon realised it wasn’t going to be an easy journey:

‘Zen can only be understood by one who is himself a mystic and not tempted to gain by underhand methods what the mystical experience withholds from him.’
I found that sentence difficult to reconcile.

Why?

Er, well, I’m a poker player. My very economic survival depends on underhand methods and the denial of the mystic experience.

I began to doubt the professor.

I read on and stumbled across:

‘Only [he] who is completely empty and rid of the self is ready to become one with the transcendent Deity’.

Again, that could be tricky.

I am sitting here and I wilfully believe that other people may be interested in reading my opinions. I’m also complimenting myself on a finely cooked hamburger. I fear I have a way to go. Howard is way ahead of me: he is a vegetarian.

However, as I digest more of the thin book, I start to realise that some of it may help at the table, particularly the material on breathing.
The author is trying to master archery. To assist him, his Buddhist mentor teaches him breathing exercises, ‘after breathing in, [stretch] the abdominal wall and hold it there. Breathe out slowly and evenly and draw a quick breath – out and in continually, in a rhythm that will settle.’ This causes the author’s muscles to ease and to feel relaxed.

This definitely helps. As Lederer puts it, ‘I sit at the table and relax. For two years now, I have been practising my own form of poker meditation.’

Try it yourself, preferably during an online session, behind closed doors. It helps focus the mind, it boosts concentration and it makes you less susceptible to sledging.

Just remember – it is not perfect.

The beauty of poker is that no teaching is perfect, a point I’m sure ‘The Professor’ would concede. When Daniel Negranu made some immature remarks about Annie Duke, Lederer’s sister, Howard chose a public forum to articulate his distaste. As he later commented, he was ‘extremely steamed’. He was definitely not totally relaxed, nor completely free of the self.

Agitation is part of poker and I realise that I will have to rewrite my goal so we produce a ‘Stress Reduction Program.’

Its first lesson will be: Practise your breathing.

Its second lesson?

Christ.

There I go again. I should read my own notes. Stop by next week to read more of my (yet to be conceived) bumper sticker wisdom.

Let's Stick to the Program

Here in London it is a day of disruption and chaos.

Is it because of a burst water pipe?

Nope.

Power cut?

Guess again.

Terrorist attack?

Get real.

It is because of snow.

Overnight, we experienced a relatively heavy snowfall and the city is at a standstill. People are unable to get to work and everywhere there are signs of broken routines.

Lives disrupted can promote a time for reflection. As I contemplate the temporarily changed landscape, I spare a moment to wonder what the hell went wrong with my New Year poker resolutions.

Regular readers may recall that I decided to steal the UK’s five most common resolutions and adapt them to poker. They are:
1. Take regular exercise
2. Lose weight
3. Cut down on spending
4. Save more money
5. Learn a new skill

I intended to maintain my exercise pattern as I believe that a healthy body boosts concentration for poker. I pledged I would do more sit ups. I also stated I would continue to play badminton and enjoy a daily walk. It hasn’t happened. I think my busted physical flush has helped contribute to a lacklustre month at the tables.

I have been more irritable – that costs money. I have been more easily distracted – that costs money. In my only game of badminton, I ended up on my ass – that costs more than money. I cannot continue to allow myself to be floored by: the weather, the fact that my badminton opponent has just become a father and is avoiding the sports hall, or any other reason I concoct to help me deny that I have been a bit lazy. I must improve. I will improve. February will different and, at my current high levels of irritation, heaven help anyone who says otherwise.

One consequence of all of this inactivity is that I can now boast a more expansive stomach. Given the demand for new land in London, my gut is now attracting some interest from lowlifes in real estate. Apparently, even my belly button has potential. Curious parties should email my contacts and discuss ways to chop up this particular area of unprecedented growth.

Please do. The extra cash might help.

I’ve been trying to cut down on spending. I resolved to improve my ROI from 14% to 15%. Guess what? It has dipped to 13%. I’m mildly concerned. I might even console myself with another tub of Ben and Jerry’s.

I suspect my ROI has dipped as a consequence of my irritation. Poker is a very psychological game and everything is related:

Lower exercise levels=more irritation=lower ROI=more Ben and Jerry’s.

I am aware that I have definitely been in the wrong state of mind when I have played some sit ‘n goes. I found myself playing too aggressively at times, particularly when I was defending my blinds. I was stubborn. It is the biggest flaw in my game and it is far more likely to surface when I am irritated and unfit.

I have had slightly more success with the fourth resolution: save more money. I pledged I would try to reach a PTBB rate of 8.0 from 7.4. I ended January at a rate of 7.7. Improvement has been made, if not quite enough. However, I am reasonably happy. At times during January, the cash games have been so full of sedimentary rocks that I have half expected an excited geologist to appear and claim that the tables provide crucial evidence of the earth’s evolution.

However, I am more than happy with my progress towards learning a new skill. I managed to profit playing Omaha Hi/Lo. It wasn’t earth shattering – and certainly wouldn’t distract out geologist friend – but I made steady earnings at a new game and therefore reduced my ice cream consumption. I would recommend the experience.

I hope that your goals are progressing better than mine. It wouldn’t be hard. Regardless, it is important to review them and set modified challenges. Here are mine for February:

Exercise: walk every day for one hour. Do 10*50 sets of sit ups per day. Coerce my opponent to play badminton once per week.
Lose some weight: Bye-bye Ben & Jerry, hello broccoli and juice.
Cut down on spending: Return my ROI to 14%
Save some money: PTBB of 8.1
Learn a new skill: make 15 stacks profit at Omaha Hi/Lo.

I’ll post an update on the first Monday of March. By then, London should be back to normal. If I stick to my plan, so should my stomach.

The Ten Cent Solution

On Wednesday, you may recall that we left you with the following poser:
A bat and a ball set costs €1.10. The bat costs €1 more than the ball. How much is the ball?

Most people do not arrive at the correct answer straight away. I know I didn’t. I was with the majority of people who experience an immediate impulse to say ’ten cents.’

The question was taken from Dan Gardner’s book, ‘Risk – The Science and Politics of Fear’ and, as he mentions, the answer ten cents, ‘looks and feels right.’ However, it is clearly wrong. As soon as your brain engages and overrides the gut’s instinct, you will reach the correct answer. However, players do not always take the time to do that at the poker table.

I played the following hand this week:

I was in mid position and had 77. A tight player raised to four times the big blind. I called and so did the small blind. The flop was 7-8-K, rainbow. The small blind immediately bet the pot. The raiser folded and the action was on me.

Although it was a hand I was unlikely to release, the player was very solid and I knew he was winning on other tables. The bet was worthy of respect, particularly as it signalled that he wasn’t scared of AK. I simply called because I wanted to see how the action progressed.

The turn card was a Q. The small blind bet the pot again. By this stage, I was more than a little worried about a set of 8s. I called again. The river was a ten. He checked. At that point, I knew I had won. However, that is not the point. I went all in, he instantly called and showed 8-7, for middle two pair on the flop. That is the point.

It was the impulse to say ‘ten cents’ that provoked the call. His gut tells him, ‘I am playing Hold ‘em, I have two pair, that is a good hand, I call.’ I am presented with a problem, I have an instinctive solution.

If his head had taken a few moments to think things through, he may not have called. He may have realised that he could only beat a bluff or AK. Instead he pressed the button immediately and kissed goodbye to his stack. He was scared of a bluff and reacted too quickly. Partly, it was not his fault: as he was a slave to his wiring, as we all are. As cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker puts it,

‘People who are emotionally driven to retaliate against [others], even at a cost to themselves, are more creditable adversaries and less likely to be exploited.’

Admittedly, I also acted quickly on the river. However, I had taken a few moments on the flop to think about my opponent’s style and his range of holdings. I had tried to overrule my emotional reaction to flopping three of a kind. In the end, those brief moments paid off as I knew he wouldn’t check a set on the river. (For the purists, I am aware there was a runner-runner straight and he may have been scared of it, but we are frequent opponents so it was unlikely he would put me on that.)

I am far from immune from making the same mistake. I commit such howlers on a daily basis. One of the most exasperating aspects of poker is that often, just when you are trying to think rationally, you hear a voice that says, ‘He’s full of s*it! Call! Call!’, and you become a slave to your instincts. If you are reluctant to admit that it happens to you, think about this: how many times have you been able to predict the outcome of a hand that you were not playing?

I wager (and I can write this with the confidence of a man who knows the bet will not be taken) that it is a lot. Certainly, you probably make fewer mistakes than you do when you are involved in the pot. As soon as you placed under stress, the likelihood that your emotional reaction will override your rationality is huge.

Ideally, you reach the ‘optimal state’ that allows the perfect blend of mind and body. Recall how Doyle Brunson puts it, ‘I go with my feeling, which is really a rapid analysis of conscious and subconscious thoughts.’ Achieving such a state will be difficult and I am nowhere nearer knowing how to reach it, but taking a second before declaring ‘ten cents!’ definitely helps.

This Just In...

(News from other sources.)

A new Middle East crisis erupted last night as Dubai TV refused to broadcast The Flintstones. A spokesperson said that people in Dubai do not understand the humour but those in Abu Dhabi do.

On Fear

For today’s post, I’d like to continue to talk about stress and how it is vital to understand how it can affect a player’s decisions the poker table.
Consider this quotation from Samuel Johnson, English man of letters:

Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil; but its duty, like that of the other passions, is not to overbear reason, but to assist it.

As I take a moment to restore Sammy J to the bookshelf, try to contemplate just how it is possible to incorporate the wisdom from his eighteenth century scribbling at the twenty-first poker table.

It might also help to fill your head with the thoughts of Dave Grossmann, an ex army lieutenant colonel and author of ‘On Killing’, who has studied the effects of heart rate on performance. He discovered that there is an optimal range – from 115 to 145 beats per minute – that improves an individual’s performance. People’s senses are heightened; they have better powers of concentration and can disregard irrelevant information.

In a recent live poker tournament, my pocket nines made quads on the flop and I remember being conscious that not only had my heart rate increased, but that I was also less aware of the casino’s background noise. Obviously it was not a difficult hand to play, but I suspect that I was briefly in that optimal zone and, as a consequence, my poker skills were boosted.

It is a phenomenon supported by the words of basketball legend Larry Bird. He has said that at certain crucial stages during a match, he could not hear the roar of the crowd and the players would appear to be moving in slow motion. He was playing in the optimal range.

The problem is that few of can sustain that range and our bodies can become overstressed. If our heart beat reaches 175, we can go into shutdown: the mind perceives a threat and so begins to switch off bodily functions it doesn’t need. (At its most extreme, it is possible to lose control of one’s bowels.)The trick is to learn coping mechanisms.

When I flopped pocket nines, I was concerned that my heart beat would continue to soar so I mentally recited a song. It seemed to work but I suspect it would not suit everyone. We need a more universal scheme. One man that has developed the idea is Gavin de Becker, author of ‘The Gift of Fear’. He also runs a firm that provides security for high profile figures. As part of their training, he puts his bodyguards through a program of ‘stress inoculation’: he shoots them.

Obviously, not with a real gun.

However, they feel the force of the plastic marking capsule and it takes them by surprise. The stooge is allowed some recovery time and then, just at the point when they can function, they take one more to the chest. In total, the recruit is shot five times. As de Becker puts it, ‘By the fourth or fifth time you get shot, you’re okay’. At that point, the recruits are then asked to handle an angry dog.

On initial contact with the pooch, the recruit’s heart rate leaps to 175. ‘They can’t see straight. The second of third time, it’s 120 and they can function’. They can remain in their optimal range. (If this program causes you to think of the process of desensitisation, I would advise to you quash those thoughts, turn the TV on and return only when you are no longer so independently minded.)

I’m not convinced there are many people prepared to take five to the chest and attempt to handshake a hungry Rottweiler as part of a campaign to play better poker. However, if we could construct our own version of the ‘stress inoculation’ program, I’m sure we would become better players.
Here are my ideas so far:

1. Ask a friend to become a kind of urban sniper and attempt to ‘shoot’ you with a water jet at an unexpected moment, preferably when you are carrying a carton of OJ so you can feel like Don Corleone.

2. If that sounds severe, find someone who is happy to relate bad news to you on a constant basis. Soon the loss of a job/mortgage/limb will be bearable and you might take down a tournament.

As you can see, I won’t be contacting the poker publishers anytime soon.

However, there is a serious point here, one that illustrates why it is not possible to learn poker by playing for matchsticks. To become the best you can be at poker, you have to acknowledge your fear and then use it. It is wrong to say ‘No Fear!’ – it is an essential part of the game.

I will give some serious thought to how to manage stress at the table and will attempt to devise a proper inoculation program. I would also like to invite you to share any ideas on the topic and then between us we can swell the database of poker knowledge.

In the next post, I will discuss how, when you have managed to use your fear, you can begin to enjoy the perfect combination of intellect and intuition. Often, one is used at the expense of another.

Here is a quick example:

A bat and a ball set costs €1.10. The bat costs €1 more than the ball. How much is the ball?

Blink and You'll Lose it

I’d like to start the week’s posts by slapping down another chunk of poker goodness. It is part of an ongoing series of pieces that illustrate ways in which absorbing popular science and psychology can assist you at the poker table.

Regular readers may recall that a previous post suggested that recent WSOP main event winner, Peter Eastgate, is a good example of what author Malcolm Gladwell terms an ‘Outlier’ (Check out the posts dated from November 18th – particularly if you are suffering from insomnia). Anyway, I would now like to demonstrate the true breadth of my reading by bringing ‘Blink – The Power of Thinking without Thinking’, to your attention. Yep, you guessed it - the book is by Malcolm Gladwell.

Rumours that I am in bed with his publishers remain unsubstantiated.

‘Blink’ attempts to explain ‘those moments when we know something without knowing why’. It uses a handful of examples, such a car salesman with the best figures in America, relationship advisors who can predict the likelihood that a couple will divorce and art dealers who can instantly spot a forgery. (The latter two examples could conceivably overlap.)

However, the best example for poker players occurs in the introduction: not only is it based on cards, it spares us the hassle of reading the subsequent 250 pages.
Scientists at the University of Iowa conducted an experiment. They placed four decks of cards on the table – two red packs and two blue. Participants were invited to turn cards. Every card would either earn them some money or cost them some money. They were free to choose and were asked to develop the most profitable strategy.

They were not told that the red cards were a snake pit: they gave huge prizes but devastating penalties. By contrast, it was possible for the stooges to profit by only selecting blue cards: the rewards steady and the punishments slight. The scientists wanted to discover how long it would take for the guinea pigs to make the discovery. On average, participants developed a ‘hunch’ after fifty cards. After eighty, they were able to articulate why they preferred blue cards.

However, there was another part of the experiment: scientists monitored the participants’ sweat glands in the palm of their hand. Consequently, the scientists could monitor the gamblers’ stress levels. The discovery was illuminating.

On average, a participant had a stress reaction to the red pack by the tenth card – forty cards before they developed their hunches and seventy cards before they could explain the situation. Moreover, as soon as they began sweating, they opted for fewer cards from the red packs. In other words, in a time of stress their body opted for the optimum strategy before their mind knew what is going on.

The situation the scientists create is a decent comparison with a NL Hold ‘em game. Here is a section of Super System 2 by Doyle Brunson, considered by many to be the bible of poker, even by some who don’t have the surname Brunson.

‘Whenever I use the word ‘feel’ it is not some extra-sensory power. Many times I get a feeling that he’s bluffing or that I can make a play and get the pot. My subconscious mind is reasoning it all out. It is there, buried in your mind. When the time comes to use it, you won’t have to force it. The vibrations are definitely there. It is usually a stress situation. I don’t know exactly what I’d do until I’m faced with the problem. I go with my feeling, which is really a rapid analysis of conscious and subconscious thoughts.’

Although Super System 2 goes on to outline plenty of tips and strategies, by time he reaches the conclusion, he admits they are ‘white meat’ and only the foundations of success. He plays by ‘feel’, or what Gladwell deems ‘Blink’.

I am pretty sceptical about some aspects of popular science, but when I combine Gladwell’s thoughts with Brunson’s feelings, I think ‘Blink’ rings true, particularly when I contemplate my own experience at the table. There have been plenty of times when I have pressed the call button and watched my stack flee to the embrace of another. Annoyingly, I could have avoided those feelings of emptiness had I listened to my gut: I have ‘known’ my opponent’s cards before I press call – but my head insisted ‘It’s a bluff! It’s a bluff!’

I suspect that the top players, like Brunson, have developed a highly successful way of interpreting their body’s reaction to the game and then act accordingly. Maybe they understand the difference between the red and the blue cards after only ten tries. Take heart from that.

In the experiment, all of the participants registered for stress. Similarly, our bodies are reacting in the same way as Brunson’s when we play poker. Develop the art of listening to your physiological reaction and you too could reach the level when you ‘just know’ you can win the World Series with T-2.

Omaha Hi/Lo - Final

My fellow bloggers, I sit here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by the weaker players.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. We have travelled a long way and the end of our journey is near. We should now be ready to take our seat at an oval table and establish a more prosperous community of Omaha Hi/Lo players

You may remember that our campaign began many moons ago. We knew that many would stumble along the way but we prayed for guidance. It came in the form of three wise gems:

1. You must have stricter starting requirements than your opponents.
2. You must remember that the nut low hand will regularly tie.
3. If you decide to play for a drawing hand, it must be the nuts.

Now, the brave, the hard-working and the patient have made it to the threshold of enlightenment. They have proved worth of the following supplementary wisdom.

Firstly, it is vital to note that not many players will fold pre flop when they have already called a bet – some will but not many. Therefore it is essential that when you are contemplating a raise, you are doing so for the right reason. If you are planning to trim the field, pay attention to who is in the pot. If you have a hand that needs to improve, there are two callers and players behind you, a raise will not accomplish a great deal.

For example: you hold A-A-2-T, rainbow.

Two players have limped. You have two players behind you and the blinds. A raise will get you into trouble. It is only worth one bet as it is likely you will be facing four happy callers.

By contrast, in late position the same cards merit a raise, if you the first to enter the pot. You should knock out the hands behind as they are receiving poor value. Moreover, the aces should stand up against opponents who are aiming high.

It is always worth exercising a little caution when you are dealt two aces as it is not a hand that always has value, contrary to the actions of some players. Two suited aces are always worth playing but a hand like AA8J is fairly useless. It is certainly not worth calling a raise and if you limp in early position, it can quickly become a trap hand. A key skill is to recognise when the value of your hand takes a nose dive. It often happens to players holding two aces.

If you catch a player holding four high cards on a board that flopped three low cards, crack open the champagne, tell your helpmeet to hold your calls and prepare to fill your pockets. It is a fundamental mistake. If it is ever performed by a player who raised from the small blind, then rip out the 2009 calendar and prepare to retire on the year’s profits.

There are few hands that are worthy of a raise from the blinds. It is an act of folly akin to charging into No Man’s Land from the safety of the trench. The positional exposure is just too much of a handicap to overcome in most games of Omaha Hi/Lo. In the dream situation when you are dealt the killer hand of A-A-2-3 fire away, but in most cases checking or calling will limit the damage.

Although A-A-2-3 is the best starting hand, don’t expect it to come along too often. In fact, it is less likely you will see A-A-2-3 (two suits) than it is you well peek at four of a kind. (Twelve combinations make the former, thirteen the latter). However the reason it is the dream hand, is because it illustrates the value of having a second low card for back up.

A second low card offers protection in the scenario when the board duplicates one of your low cards. Here is an example:

You have A-2-K-J and the flop is K-6-5. When the turn brings a 7, you have made the nut low. However, the river card is a 2, thus rendering the two in your hand useless. Although your low is 7-6-5-2-A, now that there is a 2 on the board, the nut low hand is 6-5-3-2-A. It will be made by anyone holding A-3. It is a common occurrence and can be costly.

That happens roughly (on the turn or the river) 25% of the time. If you have a back up low card, you will only find yourself in that situation 3% of the time. The advantage should be clear.

In the situations when you have made the nut low, particularly when you have a second card safety net, and the nut flush draw, you should play the hand aggressively. Yes, you have to remember Rule Two, but too many players don’t make enough money with the nut low as they play too passively.

You want opponent to make poor decisions. If you bet your made hands strongly, other players have a far greater chance of making bad decisions. If you play the hand passively, it reduces the impact of their poor decision and, in some cases, awards them the odds to call.

Just like Hold em, effective betting on the flop and the turn is based on knowing when you need to eliminate undesirables and when you would quite like more people to join the party. Some of those decisions have to be made based on situational circumstances in the middle of battle but there are certain rules. If you are drawing to a nut hand (or, ideally, both) calling is usually best as you want plenty of people to make deposits. However, if you are in the position when you have already made a hand, it is time to present them with an expensive bill for sitting at the table.

One special scenario occurs when you flop a set. When Hold ‘em players flop sets they are frequently moved to write poetry. However, a flopped set in the game of Omaha Hi/Lo is more likely to inspire a verse beginning:

There was a young man with three kings

Who was keen to begin betting....

Far too often, flopped sets end with cursing.

Exercise caution, particularly when you have flopped bottom set. In most scenarios, the best result lands only half the pot. In other cases, your high hand will be trashed. If you do become seduced by a set, I would advise to play it slowly and see what happens when the turn card moseys into town.

Playing it slowly disguises the strength of your hand and you will be in a better position to predict the direction of the pot. If the board contains only high cards, you can happily accompany your set to the river, where the pair of you will stand a good chance of having a chip picnic.

Betting on the river is quite an art form and one that many do not understand. If you are first to act with either nut hand, bet! It seems obvious, but some forget and either try to check-raise, or just flat call. There is no logic. A check-raise will only be called by others with a nut hand (in most cases) and you risk losing bets.

A far trickier situation develops when you are stuck in the middle of two players, with a hand that is marginal in both directions. The only decision is whether to raise or fold. Calling has no merit: you let the player behind you make an easy decision – and he/she could have a marginal holding that would be dumped to a raise. If you frequently make the correct decision in these scenarios, I guarantee that you will make a profit.

Omaha Hi/Lo is quite a complicated game and few variants of poker require the player to make so many appraisals. However, once you have absorbed the game and its complexities, it becomes relatively easy to beat, as so many players are either seduced by marginal holdings, or they remain a little baffled by its intricacies.

If you follow these guidelines, remain patient and stay focussed, you will show a profit.

The Legacy of British Empire

According to Sir Richard Turnball, the penultimate Governor of Aden, it is 'two monuments: the game of Association Football, the other the expression 'Fuck off'.'

Omaha Hi/Lo - Part Three

Welcome back class, we hope you had a good weekend. Hopefully, you are now ready to knuckle down and continue with our deconstruction of Omaha Hi/Lo. If not, please feel free to pop to the tuck shop and order yourself a pastrami on rye, or do something that rocks your boat. We want you happy. We will not be home to Captain Sourpuss. When you return, we’ll still be here, immersed in probabilities and chewing the flop. In fact, while you are gone, we will again chalk up the three fundamental rules. They may help blow away some of the Monday cobwebs.

Remember, in Omaha Hi/Lo, a house of rising profits is built on the following foundations:
1. You must have stricter starting requirements than your opponents.
2. You must remember that the nut low hand will regularly tie.
3. If you decide to play for a drawing hand, it must be the nuts.

Today, we will cover Rule Three. In some ways, it is the most important point because if you frequently ignore it, you will definitely go broke.
In a game of Omaha Hi/Lo, it is not uncommon for five or six players to see the flop. In such a hand, if you decide to remain in the pot and you have a drawing hand, you have to make the nuts. Nothing else will do, because pots are frequently halved and the margin for error is smaller: playing for second best is a losing proposition.

Here is an example:

You are playing the big blind position and you are holding Kc-8c-Td-7h.

Five other players see a flop of: 2c-5c-Th.

You are first to act and it is an unraised pot. It can be very tempting to check and call, particularly because it is easy to believe that you might see the ace of clubs, thus making the nut flush. But listen up for sec. Put down that sandwich and wipe your mouth: A lot of the time, the ace will be out there.

Even in soft games of Omaha Hi/Lo, the players will understand the power of the ace. If a lot of your opponents see the flop, the stronger the likelihood that the aces are out of the deck. It is time for you to check and fold. Playing for the king high flush is just not profitable. Bad decisions like that occur all of the time at Omaha Hi/Lo and the simplest way of boosting your profits is to make fewer of them than your opponents.

To underline that point, let’s change your hole cards to Ac-8c-Td-7h. The flop stays the same.

This time, you should definitely check and call (in more advanced scenarios, you could consider a check-raise but that could cost you a lot of money, if you didn’t have a read on your opponents). If you develop your hand into the nut flush, there is a fair chance that you will be against someone who has not benefited from the wisdom of Sun Tzu and will pay you off. Moreover, if the third low card fails to land, you could scoop the whole pot.

At this point, I would like to remind you of Rule Two and our previous discussion: You must remember that the nut low hand will regularly tie.

In last week’s entry, we advised that it is essential that you are capable of putting down the nut low. For the exact same reason, there are times when it is not worth drawing to the nut low hand. The more players in the hand: the more likely that the low will be tied and it will be more expensive to make the draw.

To amend the example a final time: the hole cards are now As-3c-Kc-Th, but all of the other conditions are the same. It now becomes a hand that could easily cost your stack. For a lot of players, it will.

It is a home-wrecker because it has:
a) the second-best flush draw.
b) a draw to the nut low (although a three would cause problems).
c) plenty of opponents.
d) a big pot.

It is a very difficult fold, one that most of your opponents will not be capable of making. Most of the time, you have to fold. If you hit, you will likely make the second best high hand and quarter the low pot. They are terrible odds.

We hope you know understand why drawing to second best hands is not a great way to defeat the credit crunch. Hopefully, you are now well on your way to crushing the Omaha Hi/Lo games.

On Wednesday, we will post one final Omaha Hi/Low tutorial, which will cover some advanced moves and plays that were beyond the scope of the fundamental rules.

Well, that is the bell sounding and today’s lesson is over. Take care out there class and don’t let me catch you playing second-fiddle.