Gambling and poker

You will have no doubt read countless interviews with those who have achieved far more than I in the world of poker. I’m sure you’ve seen one standard question repeatedly asked by reporters: ‘What does it take to be a great poker player?’ Among all the standard attributes you will always see Messrs Negreanu and Hansen et al, include ‘an ability to gamble’.

So continuing the theme from the last couple of articles that I have lost all ability to gamble, I’ll continue to proliferate the theme that it might not always be perfect poker to get your whole stack in the middle at the first opportunity.

Parallel Plays

I recently happened to catch a clip of the London EPT final won by Vicky Coren a few years ago. The hand that provoked interest was against an old adversary and close friend of mine, Jan Sjavik.

Jan was probably the first true Scandie that I came across, and is one of the all-time great ‘scandies’ – even though major titles are sparser than they should be on his resume. In many ways, he started the ball rolling.

I’d gone to battle at The Vic on many occasions in the late 90s with part-time Swede, Chris Bjorin but although he wasn’t Vic-rock-solid-only-put-my-chips-in-with-the-nuts, he also wasn’t quite the full-on cavalier Scandie. Chris had probably shown the first early steps towards Scandieness, but Jan arrived on the scene with the real deal.

A couple of weeks before John Duthie shot to fame as the original Poker Million winner in 2000, I had managed to outlast him and Bambos Xanthos to win the European Classic at the Vic. An £80k first prize was as good as it got in those days (except the Poker Million of course) and was not to be sniffed at.

Anyway, the following year, I was giving my defence of The European Classic an awfully good run for my money. By the time we reached four-handed play, Jan and I both had approximately 400k in chips in contrast to Shar Koumi and Ben Battle who had less than 150k between them.

With a prize money split of £15k, £25k, £40k, £80k, the conventional wisdom of the time was that the chip leaders would not clash until heads-up, and that we would pick on the shorts stacks. The logic being that you should lock up the £40k and not go to battle too early risking a paltry return of only £15k.

Flashbacks

As I watch the delightful Vicky lean over the table with her chip stack in the middle, I remember how my legs had turned to jelly as I stood up from my chair in 2001. While pondering over Vicky’s excellent continuation bet all-in move on a flop of 10-10-9, Jan had been put on the clock by another player at the table who was not involved in the hand.

The flashbacks to 2001 came thick and fast. I have moved all-in with K-Q on a King-high board. I couldn’t believe Jan was even thinking of calling me. Shar Koumi – not in the hand – asked for Jan to be put on the clock. Brian the lion, part of the Vic furniture, been there a lot longer than all the Vic furniture, tells Shar ‘there is no clock’.

Flash forward to 2006 and the clock is counted down on Jan. Vicky’s face drops as he unexpectedly says ‘I call’. Unexpectedly to everyone, except me, as I remember how I nearly fell off my chair in 2001 when I heard exactly the same words. I’d thought he couldn’t possibly call, even if he thought he was winning.

He had to wait for the other two to be eliminated before clashing with me. I hadn’t, of course, factored Norsemen, Vikings and Scandie pokerism into my logic. It was an oversight that could not be made nowadays.

In my game, Jan’s face dropped as he revealed his K-8 for top pair worse kicker just as Vicky’s had in 2006 as she revealed A-J no pair. Just as I’m thinking ‘Jesus, I’ve won the tourney right here’, the poker gods stepped in.

Well, more to the point, the dealer peeled off an 8 on the turn and 800,000 chips were Norway bound. Losing a ninety-percenter for 65k isn’t a bad beat that I’ll forget in a hurry – of course, he shouldn’t have called in the first place!

Meanwhile in the EPT clip, the commentators are exclaiming what a great call Jan has made. A ‘great read’ and his pair of threes are way ahead of Vicky’s A-J. Needless to say, the Poker gods now decide to intervene and peel off a Jack on the turn and all of a sudden Sjavik is out.

Wow, now let’s just slow down a bit here. Great call? Great read? What a load of tosh! Why don’t we just call a spade a spade for once in the poker world instead of dressing it up as an all-purpose shiny garden implement capable of digging up the grass.

A great call?

Maybe in scandie poker-terms this is an auto-call, but let’s just dissect the poker decision for one minute. Jan isn’t distracted by Vicky’s pretty face and smells fear. He gets a read. He decides Vicky doesn’t want to be called. I’m fine with believing the story so far. It was ‘a great read’.

So she doesn’t want a call. What does she possible have? A pair of twos? – Yippee a hand that is completely dominated by a pair of threes. Great call. I like it. Another weak pair such as fours, fives, sixes? – oops. Great read but we are still kind of in the doggie doo. Any other hand whatsoever? Great, our tourney life is on the line and we are a 60/40 favourite.

No disrespect to Vicky and the others but Jan was the class act with the proven pedigree left in the London 2006 EPT. He should have won it. This was not a great call, and not even a good call. It was pants. It may have been a good read but a good call? Nope it was just a matter of not being able to control his basic scandie-poker instincts of wanting to get all his chips in the middle.

Make no mistake, Gus Hansen would have also made the call here. However, Phil Hellmuth would not. He would have believed he could find a safer way to win this tournament… err, what do Gus and Jan have in common?

No bad beats

On one of my rare excursions back to Blighty, it just so happened that I ended up sharing a bottle of the old vin rouge with John Shipley at The Malmaison in sunny Brum. He had just been knocked out of the London EPT 2009.

Midway through day 2, John has average chips of 60k sat just to the left of Peter Eastgate, (Scandie World Champion), who has double that chip stack. Peter is in full-on scandie mode, raising at least 50% of the pots pre-flop and causing general carnage all around him.

John looks down at A-Q and decides this is enough to re-raise, considering Peter’s range may go from A-A to something like 7-3 offsuit. Next thing we know all the chips are in the middle and Peter proudly shows K-Q. I wonder if he knew John had also made a WSOP main event final table a few years back? In fact, I wonder if he knew that John won the first London EPT in 2003.
John has a way of ducking under the radar somehow.

Needless to say, the poker gods dictated that the pot went to Denmark sending John to the rail. He looks across the dinner table and makes the drawn out excuse to me (bad beat stories are banned over dinner), ‘I know, I know it’s a bad beat story, but I just don’t understand how he can call’… Aha!