As I maneuvered my minivan through the backstreets of Monmouth County, I marveled at the mile-high mansions. Me, I was just a visitor to this land of plenty, a man on a mission. If only I hadn’t let the judge talk me into playing that poker game last month... But there was no use in crying about it now, best I could do was try to walk away with some cash. <READMORE>

I pulled by a huge locked gate in front of what could have easily been an old English castle and rang the buzzer. “Seal,” I said into the static and the gate slowly and silently slid open. However, instead of an English butler waiting at the door, there was a professional wrestler. The guy was one X chromosome short of a gorilla and one past being able to fit into a suit off the rack.

His sense of style was to make sure his Converse sneakers were the same shade of purple as his Adidas sweatsuit. Professionally he went by the name, “Grape Ape” but he insisted everyone call him Joisey Jerry. He was a real wannabe wiseguy and even talked with an affected Brooklyn accent, saying things like “youse guys” a lot. As a joke he kept plastic goldfish in his waterbed just so he could say he slept with the fishes

At least he had a nice computer set-up. The best part was the hi-resolution 50-inch plasma screen that doubled as a monitor. The wireless mouse and overstuffed leather couch weren’t too shabby either. As the purple behemoth settled in next to me I struggled for couch space and logged onto Pokerstars to play a nlhe tournament.

This was my job, it was what I was here for. In exchange for certain legal considerations, I had six weeks to teach the Grape Ape how to play nlhe. To do it I was “ghosting” him on Pokerstars and padding his account there a lot doing it. I was playing on his account and explaining what I did and why, and even occasionally asking him a few questions about what to do next. For this service, he was paying me $50 an hour plus 75% of everything we won in the tourneys. More importantly I was not in jail.

For the first two hours he really just watched as there was nothing out of the ordinary happening. We got aces and kings three times each and played them all straightforwardly, raising and reraising our opponents out of the pot. And, of course we folded our garbage most of the time. One of my many theories of online play is that until the field is narrowed to at least one fourth of the starters it is best to just play your cards. I did, however, teach him a lot about taking notes on our opponents.

When we got down to 30 players left, with the top 27 getting paid, an interesting hand came up. We had 21k and were in 11th place. The blinds were 600/1200 and we were in the small blind with A10 clubs and everyone folded around to us. The big blind was chip leader with 46k. I told the big guy that for our next move we had three options. 1) We flat call the bb and take a flop. 2) We raise to 4000. 3) We push all in.

He, of course, chose option 3 so I had to slap him. I explained it to him like this. Option 1 gives us an almost free flop with a hand that could become a monster against a guy who could easily afford to double us up should we get lucky. Option 2 gives us a chance to take down a small pot uncontested with only a slight risk to our stack. The major risk is that we get reraised and then have to fold our marginal hand. Option 3 puts our entire stack at risk with very little reward. If the bb folds we still win only what we would have won with the small raise. If the bb happens to have any pair 10s or higher we are a significant dog and the same goes for AK, AQ, or AJ. Even if the bb decides to gamble with a hand as weak as 77, we are only a slight favorite and should we lose, we’re out.

He rubbed the side of his face. “OK, I get it. But why’d youse have to slap me?”

"I just wanted to get your attention," I lied. Truth was I liked being able to slap a guy that big around and not get pummeled. I continued, “There is a saying among gamblers that you have to be in it to win it. Keep this in mind as you play a tourney. Set goals that are realistic and gradually build as you go on. Your first goal is to make the money. Once you’re in the money, your next goal is to make the final table. From there you should strive to be among the top three. Finally you should try to win it outright. I can’t even count the number of times I have held on to make the final table shortstacked only to come back and win it. Once I did that in the biggest tourney on Pokerstars, a 500k guaranteed that almost doubled my take for the year.”

We mostly folded and won a few nice pots and soon were 5th in chips with 63k and 16 players left. There were about 800k total chips in play so the average chip count at the final table would be 80k. We were in the bb with KK and the blinds were 2k/4k. It gets folded around to the button who bets 10k of his 100k stack. He is very aggressive and is likely to push the pot at any time with any hand. Again I narrow it down to three options. 1) Raise all in and most likely win the 17k in the pot right then. 2) Flat call the 6k raise with an eye towards check raising on the flop if anything but an ace comes up. 3) Raise to 20k trying to get him to come over the top.

He put one massive arm up guarding his face. “Dis one’s easy. Now we comes over da top all-in.”

I smiled at him. “Relax man, I’m not gonna hit you again” Even I wasn’t that stupid.

"This time I have to say that a good argument can be made for any of the three choices. If you choose 1, that is a good, conservative play that will most likely work almost all the time and you will increase your stack to 80k. There is little risk in this play but almost no chance to double up and get another 50k or so from your opponent. Option 2 has a few things going for it. First of all, on the chance your opponent had a valid hand such as AQ and would have called your all in, this allows you to get away from the hand after the flop with over 50k to continue play should an ace flop. Second of all, since you are fairly certain your opponent will bet after the flop to try to take the pot, you are likely to either win an extra 10k with your check raise or possibly get him to commit to the pot if he gets a piece of it on the flop. Here you are minimizing your risk a bit and allowing yourself the opportunity to reap a larger reward. If you choose option 3, you are risking your whole tournament but you are giving yourself the best chance to double up. This is a very aggressive choice here but you are most likely gambling with the best hand. This choice gives you the best opportunity to double up and I like this option the best here.”

He stood up, almost knocking over both me and the couch. “Wait just a minute. Am I supposed to be gamblin or not?”

"Now you’re starting to get it," I said without a trace of sarcasm. “There is a larger point in common in both examples. You are given few opportunities in life and in tournaments to make something good happen. Those who take the opportunities presented to them and make the most of them are the ones who reap the largest rewards. There is a time to play it safe and a time to gamble and those who can tell the two apart are headed for the winner’s circle.”

He was still scratching his head trying to figure out the night’s lesson when we finished in 3rd place. As I pointed the minivan back towards the poorer section of town I felt the thick wad of Benjamins in my pocket and smiled. Not a bad night after all.
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