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Ah, yes—the Texas hold ‘em
explosion. Seven years ago, when I first started playing,
the Texas hold ‘em community was comprised almost
entirely of the collection of retirees who haunted the
local 1-4-8-8 games, a sprinkling of mild mannered pros
who played for a living, and a healthy percentage of truly
degenerate gamblers who would now and then stagger into
the card room after a blistering run at the craps table.
There were no internet games. There were no Jay-Cee
charity tournaments. And there was certainly no poker on
television. Although the games were typically full you
didn’t hear much about poker away from the casino, and
whenever you left the card room you got the feeling that
you were probably at least a par five away from anyone who
knew that ‘Big Slick’ didn’t refer to the Valdez oil
spill.
But that was then. As we
sit here today, in the Year of our Lord 2004, Texas hold
‘em seems to be everywhere. It’s on TV, it’s in
books, and it’s being played for nickels and dimes in
dorm rooms and basements all across America. I would say
that this is a good thing, but that would be a total
understatement. For in fact the hold ‘em explosion is a
great thing, since it’s probably the best game ever
invented for players looking to make serious money
gambling.
Now don’t get me
wrong—there are plenty of other games in which the
player can gain the advantage. You can count cards in
blackjack, for example, or play full-pay video poker, or
learn how to handicap sports. But all these games have one
formidable snag attached to them; i.e., they all come with
an enormous variance. To the uninitiated, variance is a
term we use to reference the ‘swings’ associated with
gambling. In all the above mentioned games you can
unquestionably achieve an edge. Unfortunately, however, it
can often take a long time for that edge to manifest
itself.
To fully understand any
gambling proposition, you need to be acquainted with two
terms: variance and expectation. As we explained above,
variance refers to the swings. Expectation, on the other
hand, refers to your edge. Ideally you’d like to involve
yourself with games that have a high expectation and a low
variance. Why? Because games with this relationship bring
with them a very low risk of ruin. This means you don’t
need as large of a bankroll to ensure survival, and you
won’t need to play as much to ensure yourself of a
profit.
All gambling games come
with variance—that’s just the nature of the beast. If
it wasn’t for variance the losing players would never
score the occasional win, which means there would be no
games. But you, as an advantage gambler, would like the
variance to be relatively low, so as to minimize the risk
of long and costly losing streaks. To this end, there is
simply no better game out there than Texas hold ‘em.
Why? Although the dynamics are complicated, it has largely
to do with the fact that certain hands have only a very
small chance of winning against certain superior hands.
Take for example AK vs. AT. For the AT to win, it has to
either catch a ten (of which there are only three left in
the deck), or some kind of goofy straight or flush. If an
ace drops the AT is ‘outkicked’, since the AK’s side
card is higher than the AT’s side card. Thus, the guy
with AK in this spot is an enormous favorite. If you
manage to get money in the middle when you have AK and the
other guy has AT, and further manage to get out when you
have AT and the other guy has AK, you can expect to win a
lot of money with very little relative risk.
It goes without saying then
that this is precisely what winning players do; they get
their money in the middle when they have a hand that
‘dominates’ their opponents holding, and cut their
losses to a minimum when the situation is reversed.
Because of this, the down swings that a winning Texas hold
‘em player will experience are typically much shorter
than those experienced by other advantage gamblers. Are
there ‘bad runs’ in Texas hold ‘em? Absolutely. But
the length and cost of these runs pale in comparison to
what a pro sports bettor, or blackjack player, can expect
to suffer.
The fact that Texas hold
‘em offers such a favorable relationship between
expectation and variance means that a player with a
relatively short bankroll can expect to do fairly well.
Although most experts disagree on precisely how much money
you need to be adequately bankrolled, most estimates come
in at around 300 big bets. This means you need around
$1800 dollars to virtually ensure that you won’t go
broke playing $3-$6, or $6000 to insure the same at $10-20
(remember, this estimate only applies to winning players.
Losing players can expect to eventually go broke no matter
how large their bankroll). If you figure an excellent
players win rate at somewhere around one big bet per hour,
this means a very good player can reasonably expect to
double his bankroll after around 300 hrs. of play.
Sports bettors, even very
good ones, are not immune to losing months, or even losing
seasons. And every advantage video poker player can spin
you a woesome tale about going 100,000 hands or so without
hitting a royal flush. But Texas hold ‘em players, as a
rule, don’t hit these kinds of slumps very often. With a
fairly high win rate (relative to their bankroll), and an
acceptable level of variance, it’s no wonder that so
many advantage gamblers make Texas hold ‘em their game
of choice!
It’s just pure dumb luck
that the game with the most favorable expectation to
variance ratio has become the preferred game for card
players everywhere. How this happened I don’t know, but
I for one am not complaining! Simply put, hold ‘em is
THE GAME for players looking to win money playing cards,
and with the huge influx of terrible players entering the
fray the games have never been juicier. If you’ve been
thinking about taking up hold ‘em for a while, and are
just now gearing up for it, let me be the first to say you
couldn’t have picked a better game, or a better time, at
which to make the plunge. See you at the tables!
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