Lucky is a dog's name

A graduate from the London School of Economics, Karanbir Singh is a business consultant and local professional poker player. He runs an asset management company in India and has been playing poker professionally for over 10 years. Karanbir will write a regular column for Card Player India and this month he details his views on the role of luck in poker.

Nine men are hunched over a table in a smoked filled room. They are not distracted by the fact that the air conditioning isn’t working properly, or that chairs they are sitting on make the seating provided by a local politician for a re-election rally feel like the presidential suite of the Four Seasons. Their personal space is being invaded more often than on a train ride from Andheri to Churchgate, well, maybe not as bad. They have been there for seven hours, and they don’t plan to leave anytime soon. Cell phones are not answered, Blackberry messenger is ignored. Their ages range from twenty to forty, their professions from industrialists to shopkeepers. So what has these men so possessed that they are willing to devote so much time in an environment that is, to say the least, less than comfortable. Poker. Texas Hold’em No Limit Poker.

Now if you were to think that these are gambling addicts, they would do play any game of chance, anywhere, anytime, as long as their gambling fix is fulfilled- You would be half right. Half of them would play anywhere, half of them would play anytime and half of them are gambling addicts (not the same halves). But poker binds this motley crew together. The reason, I believe, is that poker has the right amount of luck. If luck played a lesser role like in chess, the bad players (a.k.a. fish) would go broke so fast, it would make their head spin. Their winning sessions would be few and far between, they would stop playing either because of monetary reasons or they would wake up to the fact that they aren’t built for the game. If luck played a stronger role a good player would be far less likely to become a long term winner. There wouldn’t be enough incentive to become a good player and this game would join the ranks of far less interesting games like Teen Patti. This right balance of luck and skill is the reason for the immense popularity of the game.

I have mentioned good and bad players i.e. there is skill involved in playing the game. Without going into the technicalities of the game at this time, instead I offer this explanation. A casino offers its patrons various games: Blackjack, Craps, Roulette, slot machines, etc. All these games are nothing but coin flips, with an edge.  The edge is the unfair pay-off. Heads I pay the casino Rs. 100, Tails they pay me Rs. 99 (depending on the game my pay-off could be much less). That’s all there is to a casino, a high mathematical probability to win money as long as the sample size is big enough (more about sample size in a bit). All the bright lights, the fancy wheels, the gadgetry are just smoke and mirrors to keep you distracted from the fact that you are in a losing battle. You are banging your head against a mathematical wall. But, by no means am I condemning casinos, there is a reason for their existence. The edge is the price of entertainment. The edge pays for all those free drinks, the exotic decor and the rollercoaster on the roof.  

In poker, at all times, you are the casino or the customer, giving up edge or getting edge.  The skill in the game is to know which side of the table you are sitting on, and to have the discipline to act accordingly.

Sample size is extremely important. It is the nemesis of luck. In the short term, poker has a large luck component. Let me illustrate it this way; In one hand Phil Ivey could get the Hammer( a 7 and a 2, known as the worst pre-flop hand in poker) and you could get shiny pink shoe laces (them pocket Aces) and win the hand(most probably). That is what makes this game appealing to everyone. On any given day you could sit on a table with the best in world and walk away with their money. But if we play a thousand hands, the distribution of all the hands we get will tend towards equalising. Probabilities are a very ephemeral concept. But they are as rock solid as any mathematical concept, especially in a lucid situation where the variables are limited and well defined. In life, probabilities work much differently, refer to Nassim Taleb (Mathematical finance scholar who wrote the 2007 book ‘The Black Swan’) for more on that.  
The more often you flip a coin the closer and closer the distribution will approach 50%. Yet each flip is independent of all the other flips. So even if you flip a heads thirty times in a row, the chances of the next flip being a heads are still 50%. The coin has no memory, neither do cards. Shouldn't the odds tilt back in favour of tails since it has fallen behind? Not at all. It doesn't tilt back, yet, over time the two outcomes will, for sure, equal out. Therefore, the game turns into one of who plays the various situations better i.e. minimize their losses and maximizes gains. The results are now essentially based on pure skill.         
In life, there is nothing wrong with “getting lucky”, in every sense of the phrase. It is often a residue of design.   

However, in poker, if you are trying to get lucky you are the customer to someone else’s casino.  

The goal is to constantly put yourself in situations where the other guy has to get lucky, he is the customer, he is the fish. Thus, the luckier you are (trying to get) at poker, the worse you are playing. Unfortunately the converse is not true. You could play perfect poker all your life and never have a winning session. You would be on the tail end of the distribution curve. However, the probability would be similar to get struck by lightning every time you step outdoors. Also, you could play poor poker and keep winning forever. This uncertainty is what keeps those nine men playing till the wee hours of the morning. Some of them are trying to figure out where they stand, some are there to earn a living, some to beat the odds.  

But the really smart ones are selling hope against hope.  For, in this game, hope is a disease and “lucky” is a dog’s name.        

By Karanbir Singh   

INDIA POKER CHAMPIONSHIP (IPC) June 2010 at Casino Royale, Goa

The India Poker Championship event was held in June 2010 in Casino Royale. The day kicked off with the One Hand Satellites. There was a slight delay in the start of the tournaments as more players kept coming in and they had to be moved to the upstairs level where additional tables had been setup. At just a few tickets after 9 pm, the IPC 5k Freezeout Tournament began. The final number of participants that took part in the event was 103!
 
As Craig Wildman, the regular tournament director was missing, the IPC team took on the responsibility.  The player eliminations were like a contagious disease which was rapidly spreading through the room and at just under 3 hours the tourney was down to 27 players!The dropouts continued but at a slower rate than the previous hours with players battling it out to add to their chipstack. The field was split into almost even halves with small stacks and the big stacks. At around 1:30 pm we finally got down to the final table! Another hour and it was down to the final three who were Hrishikesh (Rosh), Neel and Kenneth.Kenneth eventually got knocked out in 3rd place and Neel V knocked out Rosh to win the IPC 5k Freezout.
 
After the hectic action on Day 1, it was expected that the 2nd day would be slower. But 80 players registered for the 10k Freezeout and the tournament started in the Poker room The action was a lot more focused on Day 2 due to the higher stakes involved but we still lost 2 players within 15 minutes of the tournament starting off. There were a few more dropouts within the first one hour but then the action settled down with players battling it out for the big prizes.The final table was formed by the 9th level of the blinds.
 
Once again Bombay players made up about half the table and importantly we had two 'repeat offenders' from last night. Akshat and Seshank make an impressive back-to-back final table appearance.
Nitesh M from Bangalore stood 3rd and Prabhat S finished 2nd. The winner of the 10k Freezeout tournament was Sameer R from Mumbai.
 
On day 3, 54 players entered into the 20k Freezout tournament and it was off to the races once more.
 
Anyone who entered the poker room could see there was a big tournament on. There was a lot of intensity on the players' faces and not surprisingly the poker room was a lot quieter on this evening as compared to the previous two nights.
 
Mumbai once again came to the party and it seemed like all the IPC Winner's Medallion's would be scooped up by Mumbai natives. But someone had other ideas... Rajesh G from Hyderabad won the tournament, while Avi A(Mumbai/Chicago) came in 2nd and Mukul C came in at 3rd place.
Along the IPC Winner's Medallion, Rajesh took home the biggest prize from all IPC events held till date!
 
3 days of great poker finally came to an end and all the players said their goodbyes and a toast was raised to the winners!


Sourced and adapted from the IPC blog

Two + Two Makes Fold

Old school purists say its all about the feel of the game. The new whizkids on the block are all about the math. Like it or not, Math plays an important role in Poker. Card Player India gets Rishabh Jhunjhunwala, an avid poker player and Maths Hons. graduate from Oxford Universtiy to exlplain some of the mathematical concepts related to poker.

Contrary to what a poker novice might think, mastering the math of poker is a fairly straightforward  exercise. To put it in perspective, let’s begin by stating David Sklansky’s Fundamental Theorem of Poker that, though named overzealously, gets to the heart of what poker is all about:

“Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents' cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose.”

The skill of reading opponents’ cards, then, is what it’s about. The closer you get to a perfect read – one is tempted to say a Phil Iveyan read, but desists out of deference for an omniscient power - the better you become at poker. But what of the betting pattern you should follow given a good read? That is dictated primarily by the underlying math of poker, and the Fundamental Theorem implicitly assumes -with good reason - that you can work the math perfectly. A good read and sound, internalized math basics are the foundational blocks of a good poker player, and math is the easy part.

I’ve seen players with respectable reading skills and strategy make shameful calls or laydowns because they either did not stop to work out the math properly or did not know how to. Many players would have a lot more moolah to show for their hours of poker (certainly I would) if they had done just a little bit of background reading on poker theory before playing. I went through tens of sessions of incessantly chasing flush and straight draws when the pot odds dictated otherwise and doing min raises when I should have been overbetting the pot, gifting away a lot of money in the process. Even a cursory study can remedy such a situation. 

In this write-up, I cover the essentials of poker math for novices with a few examples.

Odds and Probability

These concepts are best illustrated straight up with examples. The odds of hitting a 6 on a die are 1:5, which means that for every 1 time you expect to hit a 6, you expect not to hit it 5 times. It is identical to say that the odds against hitting a 6 on a die are 5:1, or that the probability of hitting a 6 on a die is 1/6^th.

A little clarification on the common confusion between odds and probability: odds of x : y for an event means that over x+y trials, the event will occur x times and not occur y times. The probability, then, of this event occurring is x out of x+y times, or x/(x+y). These are two distinct ways of conveying the same information.

Expected Value

Expected value, or EV, of a bet is the long-term average value you’d expect to get from it. Simply put, if you ran several trials of a bet and divided the final outcome by the number of trials, this average figure would be the EV (or pretty darn close to it).

EV is a simple and useful measure of good decision-making in any bet, whether in poker or otherwise. If the EV of a bet is positive, you should accept the bet, and if it is negative, you shouldn’t. The more positive it is, the better the bet for you. You can get lucky several times even if you go against EV calculations, but in the long run, the gods of probability will have their way and smile upon players who make the mathematically correct decisions more often. In a typical game of blackjack in a casino, the house has an EV of less than $1 for every $100 bet against it, yet this very small positive EV churns out impressive profits for the house in the long run.

To keep it simple, we will focus on how to make decisions in the midst of a poker game using EV and not introduce precise EV calculations here.

Let’s start with an elementary example. If you were offered a bet where you’d win $5 for hitting a 6 on a die and lose $1 if you didn’t, should you accept it? As intuition would dictate, this decision rests on whether the money you stand to win is enough to compensate for the small chance of hitting a 6. Mathematically, the odds of hitting a 6 are 1:5 and you stand to lose $1 for an opportunity to win $5. As it turns out, this bet is neither favorable nor unfavorable for you; the EV is zero. However, if anything more than $5 were offered in this bet, then the EV of the bet would be positive and accepting it would be the mathematically correct option, and vice versa.

Now we get to how these concepts apply to betting in poker. First, some basic terminology to help our discussion:    

Pot odds

Pot odds are the ratio of the current size of the pot to the size of the call a player must make to stay in the hand. For example, if the pot contains $100 and you must call a bet of $10 to stay in the hand, you are getting 100:10, or 10:1 pot odds.

An out is any unseen card that will improve a hand to a winning hand. What constitutes a winning hand depends on what cards one puts the other players on.

Say you start a poker hand with Ah Kh, and the flop comes Qh 8h 2c, the turn 7s. You are on a nut flush draw, and there are nine unseen cards – all the remaining hearts – that make your flush. So you have nine outs to a flush. If you think a pair of aces or kings is good enough to win against the other players in the hand, then you have six additional outs – all the unseen aces and kings. However, if you put a player on a set, then 2h and 7h are not outs for you – either card would make that player a full house or better, blowing your nut flush out of the water.

Say that in the given situation you think you have exactly the 9 outs that make your flush. There are 46 unseen cards: 52 cards in the deck minus 2 in your hand and 4 on the board.  Then there are 37 cards that miss your flush (46 – 9). Therefore the odds against your making a winning hand are 37:9, or about 4:1.

Say a player ahead of you bet $10 into the pot of $20 on the turn, making the pot size $30, and the action shifts to you. Then the pot odds you are laid are 30:10, or 3:1.

How do you decide if you should call or not? (We ignore the option of raising for now.)

You use the following simple principle: if the pot odds one is getting are better than the odds against making a winning hand, the expected value of the call must be positive, and therefore the call correct. This comparison, really, in its various avatars, is the gist of the mathematics of poker. 

In this case, since 3:1 is less than 4:1, it appears prima facie that this call is incorrect. Let us stick with that decision for the moment until we revisit this example shortly. However, if say the pot size were $50 instead of $30, the pot odds would be 50:10 or 5:1, making a call the right decision.

If you’re thinking that you’d rather lose money than make such calculations mid-game and kill all the fun of playing poker, fear not. Accurate pot odds calculations can be really useful when it comes to drawing hands like flush and straight draws, and all-in situations where there is no further betting to be done, but they are not required in most situations. With practice, one develops a familiarity with pot odds in standard situations and a sense of when to call with a hand, when to fold, and how much to bet such that you don’t concede favorable pot odds to a drawing opponent.   

A quick and useful way of approximating the probability of making a winning hand in poker is provided by this simple method: multiply the number of outs you have by 2 to get an estimate of the percentage chance of hitting one of these outs on the next street. So, in our example, the probability of making a flush on the next street is 9 outs times 2, which is 18%. This means that on the flop, with two cards to come, you have a 9 x 2 x 2 = 36% chance of making a flush by the river. As you can see from the table of standard probabilities provided here, this estimate is fairly close to the actual probability.

This clarifies, I hope, the general method of determining whether a call has a positive EV and therefore whether it is mathematically correct. It is an easy exercise to verify that whenever you have a winning hand – I mean a hand that has more than a 50% probability of remaining the winning hand on the next street – the EV of a call will always be positive, since the pot odds can never be less than 1:1 (check this for yourself).

How do you use EV when you want to be the aggressor and bet? In general, you ensure that your opponent is not getting good pot odds to call your bet. For instance, if you have the top pair or two pair on the flop and you’re putting your opponent on a drawing hand, you should make a sizeable bet, ideally one that gives her as low an EV for her call as possible without scaring her off. Every time your opponent makes a mistake by accepting a mathematically poor wager, you gain. Once in a while when your opponent will hit her draw and win the pot you’ll curse yourself for not betting hard enough to chase her away, but in the long run you’ll be better off having her call with negative EV. The gods of probability would have it no other way.  

Implied Odds

Let’s get back to our example: you have Ah Kh, and the board has Qh 8h 2c 7s. Say, in addition, that you’re playing heads up and you think you need a flush to beat you opponent’s hand. Your opponent has bet $10 into a pot of $20, making the pot size $30, and the action is on you. Based on our earlier calculation, you’re not getting the pot odds to make a profitable call.

However, if you’ve played enough poker, you have sensed that something is not quite right about this decision. It is this: our calculation did not take into account what may happen on the next street. If you make the flush, you might be able to get enough of your opponent’s chips on the river to make calling on the turn worthwhile.

Where pot odds take into consideration the money that's in the pot right now, implied odds are estimations taking into account how much money you can win if you hit one of your outs.

In this example, if you think your opponent might pay off a bet of $25 on the river if you hit your flush, you’re calling a bet of $10 on the turn to win $30 in the pot plus $25 on the river. If you don’t hit a flush, you won’t bet or call on the river, so you don’t stand to lose more than $10. Your implied odds are 55:10, or 5.5:1, which is better than 4:1, the approximate odds against making a flush. Therefore it is a profitable call. 

A note of caution: it is a common tendency to chase draws hoping that the implied odds justify the chase. Consider that good opponents will often correctly put you on a draw and not pay you off if you hit the draw, making your implied odds no better than your pot odds. 

I hope this little introduction to poker math has helped you identify some gaps in your game or at least made you think about whether your play is mathematically sound. Once you’ve developed a good understanding of the themes presented here – through, I hope, further reading and observing examples rather than losing a lot of money - you’ll find it easy to make your play consistent with mathematical principles and exploit your opponents’ weaknesses.

Happy calculating!  

India Poker Series Chapter 2 of 2010 at Casino Royale, Goa

The India Poker Series held its second tournament in Goa between the 16^th and 18^th of July @ Casino Royale Goa. Card Player India brings you a report.

July is usually a very dull period for Goa tourism. However, on Friday 16^th July 2010, Goa hotels saw a new set of faces, similarly the casinos saw the same new faces at their gates. It was the first day of the three day poker carnival which is called India Poker Series. India Poker Series is a series of poker tournaments organized by Ways2Events of Kolkata run by its director Bharat Agarwalla. Till now two chapters have been held, one being in April 2010 and other being in July 2010 and both were at Casino Royale Goa.

This flurry of activity continued for 3 days only to end on Monday 19^th of July 2010. The unrelenting rain kept disrupting flights and schedules but didn't deter the participants as after the grand success of Chapter 1 which was held in April 2010, the participants were enthusiastic to participate in India’s most popular Poker Tournament. The participants had come from every nook and corner of the country. To name a few, Gangtok in the extreme east of the country, small towns like Bhuj, Jabalpur, Indore, Manipal, Coimbatore, Kochi and also a relatively less heard of Panchkula which is in Haryana. The larger towns which were represented were Kolkata, New Delhi, Chandigarh, Amritsar, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Surat, Nagpur, Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore, Mangalore, Mysore, Hyderabad, Chennai etc. There were those who opted to drive down from Bangalore and Pune to enjoy the scenic view rather than to fly down. Couple of participants were from Dubai as well.

The jetty of Casino Royale Goa was full of participants keen to go on board the “ship” so that they can complete their registration for the much awaited tournament India Poker Series. The tournament hall saw record number of participants, this was in spite of the rain. The rains continued to lash the costal state for next 2 days as well and this resulted in a lower turnout than expected but for the said low season this was also excellent.

The brief statistics are:-

Day 1 - 16th July 2010 – Rs.   5,000 Buy-in Tourney - 106 Participants

Day 2 - 17th July 2010 – Rs. 10,000 Buy-in Tourney -   67 Participants

Day 3 - 18th July 2010 – Rs. 15,000 Buy-in Tourney -   40 Participants

A summary report of the event:

106 Participants on Day 1 which was the 5K entry. Event lasted about eight and half hours which was healthy. The participants were very happy with the structure and the organisation. 9 places were awarded the prizes. The top three places were taken by Y J Kim – Rs 1,66,000, A Agarwal – Rs 1,00,000 and Rahul Guha – 65,000.

67 Participants on Day 2 which was the 10K entry. Rain since previous day has disrupted the flow of participants. Event lasted eight hours which was again healthy and competitive. Participants were enthusiastic and excited till the end. 9 places were awarded the prizes. It was the most competitive final table ever witnessed with all the 9 players being of high experience and quality play. The top three places were taken by Rajiv Motwani (popularly known as Rocky) - Rs 2,25,000, Rajesh Goyal (has played International tournaments as well) - Rs 1,28,000, and Shashikant Koya (popularly called Cobra) - Rs 85,000. Rajesh has missed the top place at the IPS twice and stood 2nd both the times. He is yet to get top place at any IPS event.

40 Participants on Day 3 which was the 15K entry. The final table ended after 8 hours of fantastic poker. The top 5 places were awarded and the top 3 were taken by Shashikant Koya, Prabhat Saini and Mac. They got Rs 2,25,000, Rs 1,40,000 and Rs 80,000 respectively.

The event was a super success, thanks to the participation of people from all over the country and the efforts put in by Phil Sanders, Craig Wildman and Casino Royale Goa. Phil and Craig have been instrumental in getting poker to the floating Casinos of Goa. Phil, himself a top rated poker player and a UK citizen handled the poker room at one of the leading Casinos of Goa from mid 2009 till March 2010 before moving on to Casino Royale in April 2010. Craig has always been part of Phil’s team. He is also an excellent poker player having played the WSOP as well and is also a UK citizen. He has been our Tournament Director in all our past events and it can easily be said that today, he is the best Tournament Director in India. His handling of the mike and leading his team to ensure that the IPS participants get maximum satisfaction out of the tournament.

The IPS (India Poker Series) promises an even more exciting tournament next time thansk to an easier online enrollment procedure and other improvements for their October event.

Information courtesy: India Poker Series

Sin and the City

 An integral member of a ship broking firm based in London, Ambar Venkatraman has been playing poker regularly for the last 3 years in casino's all around the world. On a long self discovery trip last year, Ambar decided to head to Las Vegas and ended up spending a month in the casino's of Sin City. Card Player India gets him to relive the experience!

Man's fascination for things like the race to send a man onto the moon or for ground breaking inventions such as electricity, the telephone, the wheel or even silicon implants( in particular the silicon implants of one Ms. Pamela Anderson) has been well documented through the years.

But when you talk of an entertainment quotient, there is no place as ridiculously entertaining as 'The Strip' aka Sin City, a fact which is engrained into your brain as you land at Las Vegas Airport.

I always wondered why was it called sin city, but the pure injection of sin that you receive once you're there makes you incapable of doing anything that in the eyes and the book of the Pope can be defined as 'good'. From the constant ringing of the slot machines, to the sheer insanity of the structures that are the casinos on the strip, a proper loop roller coaster at the New York New York, to the 'falling off the edge' ride at the Stratosphere, to the Lion cage at the MGM, to sit below the Eiffel tower at the Paris and watch the musical fountain show at the Bellagio, it almost makes you believe that you can do and be anything you want.

I was in Las Vegas for a total of 25 days not so much for the reasons I have stated above  but for the fact that 'I love playing poker' and that love for the game had driven me to the city where  they say the game is played at its highest level. I wanted to experience that rush of sitting on a Vegas poker table not knowing if the new guy that has come on position 7 is a pro, a hustler, a tourist. Thats when you realize what skills you have developed as a poker player playing all those house cash games. Amidst all the glamour and fun that comes with Vegas, when you are there as a serious gambler what you have to understand is that every other human being wants your money and you have to want theirs, if you don't then you're better of going for a tourist excursion to the Grand Canyon.

One of the real pleasures of playing poker in vegas was that you had the option to make some of the most beautiful casinos of the world as your offices for the day. However, once you are on the table and have those two cards in front of you its a whole new ball game. The poker room of every casino has its own characteristics - The Venetian I found to be a bit hostile, The Bellagio as a casino and its poker room is an experience of a life time (I was lucky enough to actually see Phil Ivey play at the Bellagio), the MGM grand could give you an interesting mix but sometimes could also have some really dodgy people on the tables, The Wynn and The Encore are in todays time the most sophisticated casinos on the Strip and in turn attract some of the tightest players that I came across in my time there.

What one needs to keep in check when in Vegas as a gambler is not to get awed by the crazy nature of this crazy city. I only lasted 7 days in my first stint as I was consumed by the 24 hour life that it entices you to lead with all the gambling, the partying, the women and the rest of the glitz. I then went back for 3 weeks with a game plan of being methodical about the amount of time I was spending playing poker and partying, budgeting everyday out as if I was at work. The importance of understanding the word "Bankroll" is imperative. Live within your bankroll otherwise your intended stay could be a lot shorter than you expected even with a good day at the tables.

One last piece of advice before I sign off- Guard your chips like you would guard your wife...Becasue that strip was built on the money the casino's took from YOU!

 

By Ambar Venkatraman

Queen amongst the Kings

While poker gains popularity rapidly in India, it is still a game that is male dominated. We ask Simrit Tiwana, an active female poker player to give us her account of being one of the few women in the circuit.

Poker it seems is a man’s game. Women should be busy baking a pie in the kitchen instead. Or putting on makeup.  Or watching Sex and the City . Or raising babies. Or something to that effect. 

It’s a Sunday night, and I am playing poker at a friend’s house and I happen to be the only woman on the table that night. Two men I don’t know walk into the room to join the five of us seated at the table playing. I will call them Mr. Gold chains and Mr. Numbskull. They probably went to do their graduation at some university in America or Europe and picked up the game there, and have come to try their luck and possibly show off their superior poker skills (At this point I would like to add that all men think they are extremely good poker players. In fact, the worse the poker player, the better he seems to think he is)

Mr.Gold chain does a double take when he sees me. He scratches his head and eyes me doubtfully. Then I can see him come to the conclusion that I am probably the wife or girlfriend of one of the men seated at the table being allowed to play to amuse myself and be humoured( Hah! Let’s see how well he reads a poker hand if he can’t even figure this out!) . He smiles at me condescendingly while dismissing me as a non threat and starts to focus on the boys again, probably thinking I will lose two or three buy ins and quit after losing them. Numbskull can’t even bring himself to look me in the eye and say hello. It’s as if we are in the nineteenth century again where women should be drinking tea in the parlour room while the men smoke cigars and discuss politics in the study. Yet, for the next ten minutes his eyes dart towards me repeatedly as if trying to figure me out when he thinks I am not looking. All I can do is smile to myself .Why is it considered so wrong for me to be playing poker? (Or at least a serious game of poker)

Leaving pro's aside, men seem to think that women are not very good poker players. If internationally the perception of women is as very tight players who hardly ever bluff, in India it is generally perceived that we have absolutely no idea what we are doing at all. Within this stereotype is yet another perception that if a woman does indeed play poker she should be a slightly butch heavyset kind of tomboyish girl in a hoodie who wants to be one of the boys. If I enjoy wearing makeup, carrying designer bags and dressing up nicely, why can’t I also enjoy playing poker? How much brute strength does it take to lift up two cards, or in case of Omaha, four? If women can be neurosurgeons, why can’t they be poker players?

Another school of thought believes that it is somehow wrong and indecent for women to play. I have had other women stare at me openly and rudely as they sit by and watch the game. (You know the kind that follows their husbands around during Diwali parties with all the stacks of 'Baby’s' gambling money tucked away in their Judith Lieber bags).  I have had been asked in hushed whispers- But what do your parents say? Why are you doing this? As a well brought up girl from a good family, should you be doing this?  Its not strip poker people! 

When I say raise I mean the stakes not my skirt!!!

I do agree that it does get a little bit uncomfortable at times with the sexist remarks and the swearing, but then for us girls its no different from what we experience in the workplace as attractive young women.

Women usually keep their cool during crunch times and make logical decisions. We also tend not to lose excessively and set limits to play within our means .We girls have a natural aptitude for catching lies and bluffs. Any man who’s ever been in a relationship knows exactly what I am talking about. We are also gifted liars and have a natural poker face. We have been bluffing our own mothers into believing we spent the evening at our best friend’s house working on a project and not out with the bad boy from school since we were fifteen years old. We make the men in our lives believe that they are strong magnificent creatures we truly couldn’t survive in this big bad world without. We can bake cakes, iron our hair and send work emails while messaging our best friend at the same time. What makes you thing we can’t make you believe that the deuce pair in our hand is actually pocket aces?

I do not claim to be a brilliant poker player. Not even close. I still chase my flush, I hate to fold an over pair and sometimes I do make terrible calls. What I do believe is that I and many of my other girl friends do have an aptitude for the game and we are learning every day. But what Mr.Gold chain and Mr.Numbskull learnt that night is if I do check raise you all in on a paired board, then your nut flush is usually no good against my full house.

In the mean time I am happy to let all the men stick to their perceptions of how women play poker ......as long as I get to keep most of their money at the end of a game.

By Simrit Tiwana 

Seven Card Stud

It is widely known that Texas Hold'em is the world's most popular poker variant. That being established, there are many other forms of poker that are played all over the world in casino's, online and in home games. In this issue, Card Player India will try to bring to it's readers a basic explanation of how to play 7 Card Stud and basic strategy for this form of poker.


How to play:
Seven Card Stud is usually played with between four and eight players and a standard deck of fifty two cards. Unlike Texas Hold’em, Seven Card Stud uses antes rather than blinds. Before each player is dealt cards, they must put an ante into the pot. This is a forced bet that everyone at the table must make. Antes vary depending on the limit of the game you are playing.

After each player has placed their ante, the dealer gives each player three cards- the two hole cards and one card face up. Face up cards in Seven Card Stud are individual cards for each player, they are not community cards. Once the cards are dealt, the player with the lowest up card is forced to make a bring in bet. If there is a tie for the lowest card, the tie is broken by suit. Clubs is the strongest, followed by diamonds, hearts and then spades as the weakest. The bring in bet is usually about half of the small bet in the game. After the bring in bet has been made, play continues around the table in a clockwise motion. Each player has the option of folding, calling or raising.

During fourth street, the dealer gives each player another face up card, play then begins with the player who has the highest showing poker hand. Play continues as normal in a clockwise motion until all players have acted.

The action is the same when the 5^th and the 6^th card's are dealt, only the minimum bet size is doubled. In the last round of play, the dealer gives all remaining players one final card face down. Play begins with the player who has the highest ranking poker hand. Once all players have had the chance to act, there is a showdown. The last player to bet or raise must reveal their cards first and then all challenging players can choose to either muck their hand in the event that cannot win, or they can reveal their hand if it is powerful enough to take the pot.

General Strategy: 
Seven Card Stud is a High card game. More winning hands are decided by the highest pair of two pair or just the highest pair, than by straights, flushes and other big hands. So if you start with a straight or flush draw, it should have at least two high cards or at least one card that is higher than anything up on the board. These draw hands and low pair starting hands need to improve or turn a high pair quickly to justify continued play. Any time your high hand is beaten on the board, fold, unless you think you still have the best draw hand. Fast play early high hands ( that could win without improvement) to thin out the competition. Slow play draw hands to keep other players in to increase the pot odds in case you hit.

Definitions:
HIGH CARDS - 10 through A


LOW CARDS - 9 through 2

SPLIT PAIR - Starting hand with one of your pair cards down and the other up.

CONCEALED PAIR - Starting hand with both of your pair cards in the hole and your side card kicker up.

DOOR CARD - The exposed upcard of a starting hand.

DEAD CARDS - Cards that have been revealed and no longer in the deck.

FAST PLAY - Bet, raise and re-raise to get as many other players out as possible.

SLOW PLAY - Just check and call along to keep other players in the game and increase the pot odds.

CHECK-FOLD - Check when you can and fold if you are bet into. Gladly accept all free cards offered.

Normally Playable Starting Hands:

HIGH TRIPS - (AAA down to 101010). Fast play these. Your opponents will put you on a high pair.

LOW TRIPS - (999 down to 222). Slow play until your 5th street bet. Keep 'em guessing.

HIGH PAIR - (AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 1010). Fast play these, split or concealed, if they are not overcarded on the board. Try to narrow the field and play fast until threatened by a higher hand. 

LOW PAIR/ High Kicker - Slow play split or concealed low pairs with a kicker that is higher than any upcard on the board. Fold this hand if two or more of your key cards are dead. Check-fold if you don't get trips or two pair on the next card.

CONCEALED LOW PAIR/ No High Kicker - Slow play for trips on 4th street. Fold if one or both of your pair cards are dead. Check-fold if you don't make trips or two pair on the next card.

HIGH OVERCARDS - Two or three high cards that are higher than anything on the board. Slow play and check-fold if they don't make a high pair on the next card.

HIGH 3 CARD FLUSH - (2h 10h Kh). Must have at least two high cards. Fold if three or more cards of your suit are dead. Slow play and check-fold if you don't make a four card flush or a high pair on the next card.

HIGH 3 CARD STRAIGHT - (9 10 J ) to Q K A). Slow play and check-fold if you don't make a four card straight or a high pair on the next card.

ANY 3 CARDS TO A STRAIGHT FLUSH - (5d 7d 9d). Fold if four or more of your key straight and flush cards are dead. Slow play and check-fold if you don't make any four cards to a straight or a four card flush.