You know it’s not your night when…

Every couple of months, some friends and I get together for a fun (and very low stakes) night of Texas Hold’Em. Read the Wikipedia entry if you’re not familiar with the game, but it’s basically a variant of a seven card stud poker game. In a nutshell, each player gets two “hole” (private, face-down) cards, then the remaining five cards are public and shared amongst all the players. The public cards are turned over three at once, then one at a time for the last two, with a betting round after each card is placed.

As noted, our game has very low stakes—$10 initial buy-in and then, if you’re eliminated, you can buy in again, but only for $5.00 (so you start with a betting disadvantage against the other well established players). Last night, luck was not running my way—the first $10 had gone quite quickly, and I had maybe $3 left of the $5 re-buy.

But with the next hand, it seemed my luck might be changing. When the deal came around, my hole cards were:

Alone, these aren’t that remarkable, other than being higher value cards. But when the “flop” (the reveal of the first three public cards) happened, the hand suddenly looked a lot better:

Now I had two pair (Tens and Kings), which isn’t exactly awesome, but with two cards left, held lots of potential. So I bet, but only a little bit, as I was hoping to keep most of the five other players around to grow the pool. It worked; everyone stayed in. Then it was time for the fourth public card, also known as the “turn” or “fourth street.” In this case, it was another Ten:

Now I was golden—a full house, with three Tens and a pair of Kings! A full house is near the top of the order chart in poker, being beaten only by four of a kind or a straight flush. It’s also relatively rare; the odds are listed at 2.5% to have a full house in a hand of seven card stud. So I was feeling really good now, and even had a (slim) chance at four of a kind in 10s.

I again made a bet, a bit bolder, but by now, I only had about $1.25 left in my hands, so I couldn’t bet too strongly. The first two players stayed in, but then, across the table, someone declared “all in,” which means they bet all they had left. In Texas Hold’Em, you’re allowed to match an “all in” bet, even if you don’t have that much money—the excess amount from the higher bettor is just removed from the pot. And with a full house, there was no way I was going to fold, so I also went “all in” with my minimalist $1.25.

Once someone goes “all in,” the betting is also finished, since there’s no way the player that’s “all in” can wager. So at that point, you typically show your hole cards, and then the rest of the public cards are dealt and you just see who has the best hand. So we turned our hole cards, with mine revealing the full house, and his revealing a pair of Jacks down. So he had two pair, Jacks and Tens, which my full house easily beat.

Now all that stood between myself and winning a pot that would put me back in the game (there was probably $25 or so in the pot) was the last card, known as “the river” or “fifth street.” And with the turn of that last card, my brief streak of good luck came to a screeching halt:

Sigh. A Jack was the fifth and final card, meaning that my opponent now had a full house as well. However, his full house was “Jacks over Tens,” meaning he had three Jacks and two Tens. Mine was “Tens over Kings,” and since Jacks outrank Tens, he wins. End of money, end of night…luck was clearly not on my side last night! Two full houses in one round, and drawing to complete it on the final card, no less. Now that’s a couple of instances of very bad luck! And that’s also why I only play low stakes friendly games of Hold’Em! :)