Jack and Ten of Diamonds on Fourth and Fifth Street
Welcome to my blog, Jack and Ten of Diamonds on Fourth and Fifth Street. I am Tri Do, a junior at University Laboratory High School in Urbana, Illinois. This is a blog for my class Non-Fiction Writing, however I may continue to use this blog after the class has ended. Now, you may be wondering "What does the title of the blog mean?" The title is related to a game of Texas hold'em poker, one of my all-time favorite hobbies.
I started playing poker in 4th grade during Spanish club. We were playing Five-card draw, the version of poker everyone first learns. I don't remember the details of that session, however I remember it as being a much more fun card game than Go Fish or Vietnamese card games my parents played when they were young. In middle school, one of my friends had poker chips, and taught my brother and I how to play Texas hold'em, the most popular form of poker. I remember a lot of fun times and dumb plays I did (like betting the limit on a pair of Aces before the board). This went on until Agora Days 2017 (At my high school, during President's Day week, students, parents, or teachers can teach people about a topic. During that year, I took a class on poker).
(For more information about poker, please refer to these Wikipedia articles:
Poker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker
Texas hold'em: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_hold_%27em)
In Agora Days a student's parent taught us No-limit hold'em (my friends and I were playing limit hold'em in middle school) No-limit was better than Limit in my opinion because I could win more money/chips on a single hand, and I can put more psychological pressure on my opponents.
I have been playing poker online for about 6 months now on a website called PokerStars.com. PokerStars is by far the most popular website to play poker due to the "Moneymaker effect", where an amateur named Chris Moneymaker (clearly a name for a poker champion) won the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event. Prior to winning the Main Event, he played in an online poker tournament on PokerStars.com to qualify for the event. This caused people to believe that you could become rich by "sitting in front of a computer screen playing poker".
I was playing in a tournament where I was the chip leader with about 1.2 million chips. There was 9 people in the game and the ante was 2,000 and the blinds were 10,000 and 20,000, and 4 people called before me on the button, meaning there was 128,000 chips in the pot. I had Ace and King of Diamonds, and I put all my chips on the table, in an effort to win the pot (and more than 10% of my money) without competition. Besides the blinds, I doubt that anyone had a better hand than me. The only hands that could beat me are 2 Aces, and 2 Kings, however I already hold an Ace and a King so getting one of the 2 big pairs become more unlikely.
Unfortunately the 2 blinds called, and everyone else folded. One guy had 1.1 million chips (I will call him "X") and another had 300,000 (I will call him "Y") in chips. The main pot is 900,000 and the side pot 1,600,000 and there is another side pot of 228,000. Y is only eligible to win the main pot, X is only eligible to win the main pot and the first side pot. If I lose to player X, I would walk away with the second side pot of 228,000. Since there was no more betting to be made, it was traditional to show your cards. I grimaced at the sight of the X's two Queens and Y's two Jacks. Ace-King suited (meaning they are the same suit) is considered the 3rd best hand, however in head-to-head situations, they lose to every pair but Deuces (two Twos). I am not really worried about the two Jacks too much because they lose 80% of the time against two Queens. My only chance to win is to avoid getting Queens or Jacks, and try to get an Ace or a King. and I have suited connecting cards, I could get a Straight (5 consecutive cards, for example 6-7-8-9-10), or a Flush (5 cards of the same suit)
The Flop (first 3 cards that everyone shared was the worst possible I could imagine. 2 Queens and a Jack, meaning that X has 4 Queens. I thought it was over. One of the 2 Queens on the Board was a Queen of Diamond, therefore I had only one chance of winning. I have to get exactly the Jack of Diamonds AND the Ten of Diamonds to beat 4 Queens, since a Straight-Flush is beats 4 of a Kind.
The chances were 902 to 1, however it happened. Jack and Ten of Diamonds on Fourth and Fifth Street (the fourth and fifth card). This hand had so much significance to me since it is so rare (If you play poker for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, you might not even see it happen). It was my first ever Straight-Flush (and the only I've ever seen), and I have never knocked out 2 people at once in a tournament. After that hand I took the entire pot, knocking out 2 people at once, and ended up winning the tournament.
I started playing poker in 4th grade during Spanish club. We were playing Five-card draw, the version of poker everyone first learns. I don't remember the details of that session, however I remember it as being a much more fun card game than Go Fish or Vietnamese card games my parents played when they were young. In middle school, one of my friends had poker chips, and taught my brother and I how to play Texas hold'em, the most popular form of poker. I remember a lot of fun times and dumb plays I did (like betting the limit on a pair of Aces before the board). This went on until Agora Days 2017 (At my high school, during President's Day week, students, parents, or teachers can teach people about a topic. During that year, I took a class on poker).
(For more information about poker, please refer to these Wikipedia articles:
Poker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker
Texas hold'em: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_hold_%27em)
In Agora Days a student's parent taught us No-limit hold'em (my friends and I were playing limit hold'em in middle school) No-limit was better than Limit in my opinion because I could win more money/chips on a single hand, and I can put more psychological pressure on my opponents.
I have been playing poker online for about 6 months now on a website called PokerStars.com. PokerStars is by far the most popular website to play poker due to the "Moneymaker effect", where an amateur named Chris Moneymaker (clearly a name for a poker champion) won the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event. Prior to winning the Main Event, he played in an online poker tournament on PokerStars.com to qualify for the event. This caused people to believe that you could become rich by "sitting in front of a computer screen playing poker".
I was playing in a tournament where I was the chip leader with about 1.2 million chips. There was 9 people in the game and the ante was 2,000 and the blinds were 10,000 and 20,000, and 4 people called before me on the button, meaning there was 128,000 chips in the pot. I had Ace and King of Diamonds, and I put all my chips on the table, in an effort to win the pot (and more than 10% of my money) without competition. Besides the blinds, I doubt that anyone had a better hand than me. The only hands that could beat me are 2 Aces, and 2 Kings, however I already hold an Ace and a King so getting one of the 2 big pairs become more unlikely.
Unfortunately the 2 blinds called, and everyone else folded. One guy had 1.1 million chips (I will call him "X") and another had 300,000 (I will call him "Y") in chips. The main pot is 900,000 and the side pot 1,600,000 and there is another side pot of 228,000. Y is only eligible to win the main pot, X is only eligible to win the main pot and the first side pot. If I lose to player X, I would walk away with the second side pot of 228,000. Since there was no more betting to be made, it was traditional to show your cards. I grimaced at the sight of the X's two Queens and Y's two Jacks. Ace-King suited (meaning they are the same suit) is considered the 3rd best hand, however in head-to-head situations, they lose to every pair but Deuces (two Twos). I am not really worried about the two Jacks too much because they lose 80% of the time against two Queens. My only chance to win is to avoid getting Queens or Jacks, and try to get an Ace or a King. and I have suited connecting cards, I could get a Straight (5 consecutive cards, for example 6-7-8-9-10), or a Flush (5 cards of the same suit)
The Flop (first 3 cards that everyone shared was the worst possible I could imagine. 2 Queens and a Jack, meaning that X has 4 Queens. I thought it was over. One of the 2 Queens on the Board was a Queen of Diamond, therefore I had only one chance of winning. I have to get exactly the Jack of Diamonds AND the Ten of Diamonds to beat 4 Queens, since a Straight-Flush is beats 4 of a Kind.
The chances were 902 to 1, however it happened. Jack and Ten of Diamonds on Fourth and Fifth Street (the fourth and fifth card). This hand had so much significance to me since it is so rare (If you play poker for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, you might not even see it happen). It was my first ever Straight-Flush (and the only I've ever seen), and I have never knocked out 2 people at once in a tournament. After that hand I took the entire pot, knocking out 2 people at once, and ended up winning the tournament.
I understand that even after reading the Wikipedia articles about poker or hold'em, it may be confusing to some people. If that is the case for you, then I can get a deck of cards and show you how to play Texas hold'em.
ReplyDeleteYou lucky boy. How is your poker face? I wonder if you would be able to hide your "grimace" in real life....
ReplyDeleteJust kidding. I'm sure you have a great poker face. You could probably consider going pro. I wonder if the stats you learned in class help make a better poker player?
It's hilarious that there's actually a major winner in poker named Chris Moneymaker. Interesting first post! I look forward to reading more. (Quick tip: be sure your whole post is in a consistent font and font size, unless you have a particular reason for changing fonts.)
ReplyDeletePoker is also a big hobby in my friend group. I remember when I was around 7. I taught Isandro how to play Texas hold-em. On his very first hand he got a Royal Flush (which for non-poker players is the highest possible hand in the game) and unbelievably he folded (or forfeited) the hand. After seeing the cards my brother Rahi and I were in shock because the odds of getting a Royal flush are almost zero.
ReplyDeleteI've never played poker but I find it pretty cool that you can just use what you know and apply it to a simple game. Looks like you got pretty lucky with this tournament.
ReplyDelete