Teaching Big Carlos to play poker: Hand rankings
"To recap, the hands are: High Card, Pair, Two Pair, Three of a Kind, Straight, Flush, Full House, Four of a Kind, Straight Flush and Royal Flush. Do you understand?"
Today I made my second attempt to teach Big Carlos how to play poker. The people in HR have calculated his biorhythms and told me that today there will be a small window of half an hour in which he is lucid. After that he will return to his fog of idiocy for another year. Sometimes I envy him.
I found him curled up asleep by the watercooler and lured him into my office by laying down a trail of Maltesers.
"Today I'm going to teach you about Poker hands," I announced as I locked the door behind me.
"I am a pony," he replied, the Maltesers already kicking in.
"Ok. The lowest ranked hand is a high card. This can be any card. A Jack of Spades or a eight of Clubs. Anything. It's unlikely you will win much with this."
"Is it more valuable than an acorn?" he asked, pulling a handful of acorns out of the pockets of his dungarees. They spilled out onto the floor. I picked one up.
"An acorn, whilst valuable to a squirrel, has no value within the context of Poker," I sighed. This is a phrase I have to tell Big Carlos almost every day.
"Next is a pair. This is two cards of the same value. So, for example, a Queen of Hearts and a Queen of Diamonds."
"What about two kestrels?" he asked, flapping his arms in the international sign of a bird of prey.
"The kestrel does not feature within poker," I said. Again, it's a phrase I use far too often.
"Next comes Two Pair. For example, two Kings and two Sixes. After this comes Three of a Kind. For example, three Sevens."
"That it 21! Pontoon! You're bust!" he exclaimed, trying to remove his clothes. Our games of pontoon inevitable culminate in him taking off his clothes.
"You're thinking of a different card game," I said, gently rubbing his scalp until he calmed down. Sometimes I want to ask HR to up the dosage of whatever they put into his lunchtime ham rolls.
"After Three of a Kind comes a Straight. That's a consecutive run of cards, such as 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen," I explained, drawing a diagram.
"My mum is a Queen. She's the Queen of my heart," said Big Carlos. Large tears formed in his eyes. His mood swings can be very dramatic. I've seen him express all 17 possible human emotions within the space of 10 minutes.
"After that comes a flush. That's five cards all within the same suit. So, five Spades or five Hearts or five Diamonds or five Clubs."
"Or five Dryads," he added.
"The Dryad is not a suit in poker. A Dryad is a wood nymph in Greek mythology and as such, is far beyond our scope of comprehension. Let's not worry about that. Next up comes a Full House. That is like a Pair AND Three of a Kind. For example, Three 10s and two 5s."
"Ok," said Big Carlos.
"After that comes Four of a Kind. So, four Aces or four Kings or whatever. Then comes the Straight Flush. That's five cards in sequence, all in the same suit. For example, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 of clubs. It's quite rare."
He nodded.
"Finally comes the Royal Flush. That is like a Straight Flush where the highest card is the Ace. For example 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace of Hearts."
He nodded.
"To recap, the hands are: High Card, Pair, Two Pair, Three of a Kind, Straight, Flush, Full House, Four of a Kind, Straight Flush and Royal Flush. Do you understand?"
"I am a pony," he replied, pawing the ground with his hand and snorting.
It's like this every day. And yet Big Carlos is more popular in the office than I am. It's not fair.
Prices quoted in copy are correct at time of publication but liable to change.
