The perils of poker

The perils of poker

Posted on August 9th, 2023 by Scott Warnock

I’m critical, including in this space, of the rash of gambling sites and apps, especially how they are fronted by big-name former athletes luring in young bettors. But I’m a hypocrite in dissin’ all these teenage traders and gamblers, because a primary way we got through the pandemic in my house was by establishing a Friday night poker pod consisting of my two sons with a friend each. (My wife played early but smartly evacuated after a few hands.)

Poker inspires nicknames, and it wasn’t long before we were playing with the likes of Riverboat Willie and Crazy 8s. Sure, it was fun, but money, even wee bits of money, was on the table. In karmic response to my corrupting influence I experienced a few horrific moments. I’ll share.

For one, and this should have been obvious to me, penny ante poker is useless. With penny stakes, the betting doesn’t matter, so dum–er, less experienced players, stay in hands no matter what they have. There’s no logic about bluffing, no human sense of reason.

Also, when you’re playing with these types of foo–er, neophytes, you have to get out of the habit of feeling sorry for them and forcing them to go with what they call as their best hand and not their best hand. I didn’t do this, continually reminding them what they really had: How many seven-card stud hands would I have won except the idio– er nice youngster next to me actually had a flush and not the two pair he called?

But the worst part has been the really big, rare wins that weren’t.

We play a game called 7-27. In 7-27, you get two cards to start, one up, one down. Cards are worth their value (e.g., six equals six points). Face cards are worth half a point. Aces can be one or eleven. The goal is to get as close as possible to seven or 27. Each round, the dealer asks each player if they want a card dealt face up, followed by betting. The game ends when no one takes a card, and then one person declares high and another declares low and those closest split the pot.

But do the math: If you get ace, ace, five, you have both seven and 27: You take the whole pot!

Well, of course one spring evening playing with these schlu– kind gents I get ace and ace to start, and I took an early hit: I got a five! But my excitement was short-lived, because what did they all do? They dropped. I won about 12 cents.

The game of 7-27 might be a little complicated for all audiences. But here’s something I think most of you will get.

One night, after eating tacos and while drinking root beer floats, we played a hand of five-card draw. My cards came in: 10 spades, Jack spaces, King spaces, Ace spaces–my god, could it be?!–Queen spades.

I had been dealt, in five cards, a royal flush.

The probability of being dealt a royal flush is the number of royal flushes divided by the total number of poker hands, a probability of 0.00015%. Much like very large numbers, a probability that small is difficult to wrap your head around. A way to put this in perspective is to ask how long it would take to go through 649,740 poker hands. If you were dealt 20 hands of poker every night, then this would only amount to 7,300 hands per year. in 89 years you should get your royal flush.

89 years.

In our game, suppressing my quivers of excitement, I kept the bet low: Two cents. We went around the table. In this group of moro… uh, fellows who stay in when they have NOTHING, three of them dropped. One put in another two cents.

When I took zero cards that last guy dropped. I collected a total pot of 9 cents, 3 of which was mine.

That’s right: 9 cents. Everyone dropped. If we had been playing for nickels, I’d at least have won 45 cents.

I try to show some restraint among my kids and their friends–you know, be a good role model and all–but I slammed the cards to the table and bellowed, “Do you know what this f*%#+ hand is worth in the casinos?”

By the way, you would think things would improve as the players get older, but older=drinking, and drinking=misdeals. In a recent sitting, I had to suffer through three misdeals in four hands. My head nearly exploded, and I blathered about oh just how shot they would all be if we were playing in an old-time Western saloon. Pow! I think my ramblings spooked them, but they had no idea what I was talking about.

As I sat watching them giggling and scraping the cards off the floor, I realized it’d be better for my long-term health if they just tapped around on FanDuel.

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Scott Warnock

Scott Warnock is a writer and teacher who lives in South Jersey. He is a professor of English at Drexel University, where he is also the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education in the College of Arts and Sciences. Father of three and husband of one, Scott is president of a local high school education foundation and spent many years coaching youth sports.