Texas Hold'em Poker

There is a deep secret to Texas Hold’em Poker. Regardless of wherever you go, whatever tournament or table, a good portion of the people at the table already know each other and the styles of play they employ. Have you heard the cliché, that if you do not know who the sucker at the table is, it is you? Well, sometimes that is true.

I spent five years playing poker at a game started by a district attorney friend after he got back from finishing law school. Each week the “brilliant” attorneys had no idea why generally me (and usually my buddy) would walk out with all the cash. Well, we were at the game every week. Most guys were not. They would flit in and out. Maybe show up once a month. But we were there week in and week out.

The crux of poker is that it attracts all men, whether they be highly intelligent or not. People look at poker as a fast way to a tax-free paycheck, sometimes a huge paycheck. On any given corner in any large market in the USA, you can find a poker game where if you win big you walk out the door with $5K+. And I do not mean a tournament is required for that. Cash games can easily produce that. But the intelligent guys are the ones who generally clean up. Sure, there are guys who have more inherent “poker talent”, but smarter guys typically beat up on idiots. Now, of course sometimes experience comes into play, but at a table anything can happen. If you have put your mortgage payment into the pot on a showdown, and the other guy knew what you had, you are screwed regardless.

After the rules of time and space broke up the game I initially started my poker odyssey at, I played poker every morning for six months at a local native American casino with a group of very old men. I say very old because they were generally thirty to forty years older than me. The one thing they agreed on was how weird I was. They did not know how I was so good, and they also did not know how I was able to dedicate my mornings to this stupid game they were at. But I knew the secret. As I sat at this game, every single morning, every single weekday, I was learning exactly how they all played, but of course they would not be there every single day. The assortment would switch up a little, but my attendance was constant. So, I became the typical big winner.

Next time you sit down at a poker table, whether it be high stakes, low stakes, no matter the country, if you are playing in an actual casino for real money, expect this general scam to be running.