Beginner Tips / Editor / 30 January 2011 / Leave a Comment

It was time for Big Carlos's weekly poker lesson. He was nowhere to be seen, but I managed to locate him using the giant electromagnets that Betfair installed in the offices. I must admit when the management said they would be spending nearly £100 million on putting industrial electromagnets in every room, I thought it would be a waste of money, but they were absolutely right. No company can afford to miss out on electromagnets.

Once I'd peeled him off the magnet, we got started on the lesson.

"We'll start with the betting. Oh, and the dealer. Do you know what a dealer is?" I asked.

"Of course," nodded Big Carlos. "I watch The Wire."

"No. That's a different kind of dealer. In poker, the dealer is the person who hands each player their cards. Now we'll move onto blinds - sometimes called the ante. The blind is a kind of sweetener, to get things going and make sure there's some money in the pot. It means that every hand of poker there's at least some money on the table. In most games there's two blinds, a big blind and a small blind..."

"Oh!" exclaimed Big Carlos. "Like in Playschool there's Big Ted and Little Ted!" He waved his hands in the international gesture for a toy bear.

"Yes, but there is no place for stuffed toys in poker. The day a stuffed toy plays poker is the day I quit and leave this planet that you call home." I always like to drop tiny hints to Big Carlos that I may be an alien. It keeps him on his toes.

I continued: "Anyway, the player to the left of the dealer puts out the small blind. The big blind is placed by the player to the left of the small blind. The big blind is normally double the small blind. So it might be 10p and 20p."

"Or £10 and £20," said Big Carlos, displaying his rudimentary maths prowess.

"So when a hand begins, the dealer hands out the cards (two each to every player) and the person to the left of the dealer puts in the small blind and the next person along puts in the big blind. They have to put this in even if they have terrible cards."

"That is sad," said Big Carlos, bringing his hands to his face and doing the international gesture for crying.

"Before the community cards are dealt - we covered that in the Alpha Phase of your training - the first round of betting begins. The big blind is already on the table, so each player has three options. They can Fold, which means they pay nothing and throw away their cards. They can Call, which means they match the amount of the big blind and carry on playing, or they can Raise, which means they double the amount of the big blind or add even more. Then the remaining players would have to call that amount to stay in the round."

"Why would someone raise before they've even seen the community cards?" he asked in a rare moment of lucidity.

"Maybe they are very confident about the cards in their hands. Or maybe they are crazy, reckless loners who refuse to conform to society's stifling rules? No-one knows. Anyway, next comes the Flop. That means the first three community cards are dealt and the betting continues. The first person to bet is the first remaining player to the left of the dealer. And the remaining players can Check, rather than call."

I was worried that Big Carlos wasn't paying enough attention. He was throwing peanuts into his mouth and mostly missing. The pile of peanuts on the floor behind him was already nearly three foot high and was blocking my exit. It was a fire hazard. I snapped my fingers and he stopped chucking peanuts and continued listening.

"OK. So we've had the flop. The next card is The Turn, which is sometimes known as Fourth Street. It's the fourth community card. The betting continues for another round. Then it gets exciting. The final community card, known as The River, is dealt."

"Sir! Sir!" said Big Carlos, putting his hand in the air. "Is the Billy Joel song River of Dreams about poker?"

"No. It's about dreams," I explained. "But let's not get distracted. So the betting continues, but of course no more cards will be dealt. So we get to the showdown...

"Pew! Pew!" said Big Carlos, doing the international gesture for a cowboy shooting a gun.

"...and the player who first bet on the River is the first to show their hand. If everyone checked on the River, then the person to the left of the dealer is the first to show their hand. And remember, if you're holding a losing hand you can muck the cards, rather than showing them, so you concede the round but the other players won't get to see your cards."

"Can you eat the cards? To make absolutely sure that no-one sees them."

"No," I said, leaving the room.

Teaching Big Carlos to play poker: Part One
Teaching Big Carlos to play poker: Part Two

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