Independent Pursuits: Poker

PADDY JOE was mightily miffed. A gambling kind of player who could win a packet, go broke, borrow a few quid and come back from the dead, all in the same night's play, he was on his best behaviour. Watchful and sensible. So when he found Q-Q in his hand at Omaha, and the flop came down Q-7-2 off-suit, he was thrilled.

This is the only flop at Omaha if you start with Q-Q, which does not offer a straight draw to your opponents (as noted by the poker statistician Dr Mahmood Mahmood in The Science of Poker). So when the betting came round to him, Paddy checked. He wanted the others to stay in.

On any other sort of flop he would certainly have bet, to force anyone drawing to hit a straight or a flush to pay for the privilege. What could go wrong? On the very next card a king came down. And someone had a pair of kings in the hole. It cost Paddy his whole stack.

Omaha is a game of bad beats. Here is another Irish calamity which befell the Dublin player Donnacha O'Dea. He was dealt 9h-10c-Jh-Jc (double-suited) and raised. The flop came down 2-7-8 with two of his hearts showing. Now Donn has a higher pair than the board cards, an open-ended straight draw, and a flush draw in reserve.

Hanif, a strong player, now bet pounds 600. He was probably shooting a bow at venture, hoping to set up a bluff on the next card. Donn knew him well enough to know his style of play. Next card off was a 4. Hanif now bet pounds 1,600. As it turned out this was the only card in the whole deck which could help him! He had come in on a speculative holding of 2-4-4-5. The other 4 would have been a heart, giving Donn a flush, a 6 would have given him a higher straight, and a pair on board would still have left Donn with his jacks as top pair.

When Hanif bet (this was the big game, now reinstated at the Grosvenor Victoria casino in Edgware Road, London) Donn thought about it and then raised for the rest of his money, another pounds 1,400. He wanted to be sure of getting paid off on the river if he hit his hand. But the last card was irrelevant.

When Hanif showed his trip 4s, Donn stared at the cards for two or three minutes before he took in what had happened. "When a good player makes a bad play, it does sort of shake you," he admitted ruefully.