As I hurried down the highway I half-hoped the huge Hummer would hit me. Harry the Hump would have a heart attack if he didn’t have his halibut and the traffic was terrible. I winded my way around the backstreets and made it to Joisey Jerry’s only five minutes late.

I stopped by the gate and leaned into the speakerbox. “Seal with the fish” I said. I was beginning to sound like an attraction at Sea World. <READMORE>

Four hundred pounds of hungry humanity was waiting on the porch. “Here’s your filthy fish,” I tossed the package to Harry the Hump.

“That’s gefilte fish,” he corrected me indignantly, “you card playing walrus.”

“That’s seal,” I said as I sailed swiftly past him. If anyone around here resembled a walrus it was that hump-backed, triple-chinned, shaggy-whiskered, fish lover out there, but I had bigger fish to fry. Big to be sure, but hopefully by the time we finished our poker lessons, not so much of a fish.

I found Joisey Jerry, aka Grape Ape, sprawled across most of his overstuffed black leather couch with a beer in one huge paw and the wireless mouse buried somewhere in the other. He had a goofy grin on his face that made me wonder if it was his first beer.

It turned out the grin was poker related and not alcohol inspired. “Looks like maybe I don’t need youse any more Seal,” he boomed as he jerked his thumb towards the screen.

Pokerstars was open and he was seated in the 10 spot of a $50 buy-in mtt that had started ten minutes ago with 332 players. On the other side of the screen he had opened the tourney lobby window and highlighted there in first place was Grape Ape with 7350 chips. I had a brief fantasy of leaving quickly and wishing him good luck, but I knew the Judge would just toss my butt back in jail, so I sat down. “You own Pokerstars man! Wanna tell me what happened?”

“Dem joiks never had a chance,” he began with his trademark lack of humility. “AA and KK foist two hands wit a few callers each time all-in and here we are.”

As he spoke our cards came up for the next hand, pocket jacks on the button. “Hand over the mouse big guy and let me do my job.” As I took the mouse, the action unfolded: the three seat, utg raises to 5x the blind, the four seat goes all in for 1500, then the six seat comes over the top for 3200. I smiled at the mass of muscles next to me with his mouth hanging open. “Well, what should we do?”

He stammered a little, wiped a small bit of drool from his cheek, and said with all the confidence of Milhouse from the Simpsons, “Uhhh, call?

Time was almost up so I folded first and then turned to enlighten my extra large charge. “Listen man. You got lucky at the start here and have already built up a nice stack. If you get to the break with most of these chips you will still be in excellent shape. Now why would you want to risk that great position?”

“But we had jacks!” Funny how he managed to boast and whimper in the same four words.

“That’s what I call The loser’s lament,” I said as we watched the hand play out. In the end a pair of kings lost on the river to an AQ that made an ace-high flush when a fourth diamond hit the river. “Loser’s seem to think their cards exist in a vacuum. It’s always just about them. A pair of jacks is just a slight favorite against only one other hand with two overcards like AK or AQ. If all three of those cards are out there, without anyone holding an overpair, your jacks are barely 35%. If, like the betting before the flop suggested, you are up against an overpair as well as overcards, your pair of jacks are no better than a pair of sixes at maybe 18% to win. In fact, against three other players, even AA is an overall dog, winning less than 50% against three random hands.”

Grape Ape gave me the same look my dog gets when one of my kids tells him he was bad and I instantly regretted using math to explain his mistake. Fortunately we got mostly garbage for the rest of the first hour and we folded our way into the break. Pokerstars gives you five minutes break every hour and the filthy fish rumbling around in my stomach told me I was gonna need every second. Running towards the bathroom, I shouted “If I don’t get back in time just fold!”

I was only maybe two minutes late getting back, but as I entered the room I saw Jerry had just called a big raise with AK offsuit. I mentally took back my comment about the dog… at least the dog rarely did the same thing twice.

I dove over the couch and made a grab for the mouse with both hands. I was still holding on as Jerry raised his arm holding both me and the mouse up in the air. “Youse got a problem?”

Seeing as how I was suspended a few feet off the ground I resisted the urge to mock him. But I was determined, and he was going to learn this lesson if it killed me. “Put me down and pay attention,” I said as coolly as if I was asking him to pass the salt.

“First of all,” I continued, “I asked you to fold if I was late. But instead you called a big raise from utg. Second of all, after that big raise and a flat call, the button and chip leader just went all in. The original raiser calls. Are you still thinking of calling?”

If it wasn’t physically impossible I’d swear he got a little smaller and he sat down and mumbled, “Well, I was.”

I looked at our now slightly below average stack. “It’s really the same thing as before man. You can’t just play your cards in this game. Position, relative stack size, table make-up and attitude, and more should all play just as important a role in making your decisions. In poker as in life there is often more to consider than what’s on the surface.”

He was on his third beer now so I cut the lecture short and tried to focus on the game. Of course we went completely card dead and came into the second break with just under 3000 chips. We were 56th out of 74 players left going into the third hour and the blinds were big enough to kill us off soon. Since we had been at the same table for the past hour and had folded every hand, I decided it was time to grab some equity from our table image.

With the blinds at 300/600 and a 50 chip ante, there were 1400 chips in every pot before anyone acted, so it was time to get to work. We were on the button with 57 offsuit and everyone folded around to us. Jerry nearly fell off the sofa when I pushed all in. At least I had his full attention.

I knew he had the attention span of a small grapefruit so I hit him hard and fast. “There were three hands so far that together make a very important point. The first time was when we had jacks, the second time we had AK and the third is right now with 57. Each time we ended up doing something that surprised you. Please tell me you understand what’s going on here.”

Now it was my turn to be surprised. Jerry sat and up the goofy look vanished from his face. He started talking without a trace of fake Brooklyn accent. “What’s going on here is that poker is a game of situations. Playing winning poker is about a lot more than just what cards you hold. There are times when you should fold a big pair and others when you should raise with nothing. It all depends on what’s going on in the game. I did go to Penn State you know.”

He started wailing on me with two of the big pillows on the couch and added, “… on a football scholarship.” I fell on the floor and did my best to cover myself from the barrage as the big blind called our bluff with his pocket aces and took our paltry few remaining chips. We were out of the tournament and I was probably going to have a few nice pillow-sized bruises on my arms, but I was laughing hysterically. For the first time since I started coming here, the big guy was getting it and it felt really good. Besides, he just proved my point.
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