The heavenly vision of Ms Chung's lithe body diving into the pool was brought to an abrupt halt with the sound of cards hitting the felt of the table.
James looked around the table as he tried to situate himself and gather his wits back together.
On the dealers left, in Seats One and Two were two of Phil's friends. Phil sat to his right in Seat Three, and James was in Seat Four. To his left were the remaining two in Seats Five and Six.
James put out his small blind and sighed as the first of his four hundred and ninety nine soldiers were sent to battle. Other than James, each of the other players had at least five thousand dollars in front of them. James was by far the smallest player at this table.
James picked up his hole cards and was greeted by two red sevens. The seven of hearts and the seven of diamonds. Not a bad starting hand, definitely in the top twenty percent.
[ Pocket Sevens, ranked 29th out of 169 possible starting hands. ]
The first action started across from him on the dealer's right. Seat Six had lifted the corners of both cards and immediately raised to $10.
Seats One and Two had called relatively quickly.
James glanced to his right as Phil tossed in two red chips casually. "Call."
[ Chip colors: white - $1, red - $5, green - $25, black - $100. These are also the most common chip color schemes you will see at a casino. ]
With everyone calling, James felt like he was also obligated to follow suit. Of course, it helped that his hand had the potential to hit a third seven on the flop and become a three-of-a-kind, or a set.
James took back his solitary brave soldier and pushed two of his own red chips towards the middle. "Call."
Seat Five, to James' left, took a look at his cards before flicking the cards over into the middle of the table. "Fold."
With this, the first round of betting in the first hand had come to an end. There were $52 in the pot in the middle of the table. If James could take the pot now, he would increase his $489 left by over ten percent!
The dealer burned the top card, and dealt the flop. King of Hearts, Ace of Diamonds, and a black numbered card! Was it the seven that James was looking for?
James leaned forward a little to get a better view. No it was just a 6, the six of spades.
Now that it was the second street of action, James was the first to act. He had only the pair of sevens in his hand, any player with a king or an ace had made a better pair.
"Check." James tried to hide his disappointment.
"$50." Seat Six announced casually, building a stack of ten red chips before sliding them towards the middle.
"Fold. Fold. Raise to $200," came the quick replies.
James looked down at his chips. If he were to call this bet, he would have committed almost half of his life savings on the hope that a seven would come later. He didn't feel very lucky, but it seemed to be a shame to give up the pocket pair.
[ Perk Activated - Active Participation - System recommends Fold. The odds of having the winning hand here are very low, and it is unlikely you will improve. ]
James sighed as he tossed his hand into the muck. There went an easy $10. It had taken him a long time to save $10, and he had just thrown it away in a matter of seconds.
Seat Six announced a call, and the dealer burned another card before dealing a ten of clubs. There was now $452 in the pot.
A check from Seat Six, a bet of $300 from Phil, and a quick call from Seat Six led to the river. Ace of Spades.
[ Board: Kh Ad 6s Tc As, Pot: $1052 ]
Seat Six checked once more. Phil thought for a few second before betting $450 into the middle.
"I call." Seat Six announced.
Phil turned over his cards, the King of diamonds, and the Queen of diamonds. Along with the five community cards, Phil's best possible hand was two pair. The two aces in the middle, the king in the middle, his own king, and his own queen.
Seat Six turned over an Ace of hearts and a Jack of hearts. "Trips."
"Trips are good." The dealer announced, before pushing the pot of $1900 over to his right.
James perspired a little, it was only the first hand and it was already almost two thousand dollars. It was a good thing he had listened to the system and folded instead of trying to continue on the flop.
Looks like he had to be more careful and selective about which cards he chose to play. Otherwise, a single bad flop could cost him his life savings and put him back out on the streets with nothing left to his name.
[ Perk Activated - Hand History - System thinks the players aren't very good. Seat Six should have raised on the river, and Phil should checked the turn. Phil plays loose and aggressive. Seat Six is too passive. System recommends to stick to the basics and play purely based on the math. ]
As James thought about the first hand, his system had activated and analyzed the previous action from the other players. It was a good thing he had the system with him, with it's help, he should be able to hold his own.
---
Several more hands passed with heavy betting and large pots. James had stayed mostly out of it, calling small bets pre-flop only with decent hands, and folding when they invariably failed to connect with the flop. He had bled down to $450 without winning a pot or seeing better cards.
Phil had won a medium sized hand, but was on the losing end of two additional large hands and had taken out more money to top up his stack back to $5000.
Around the table, the other players had been involved in at least one showdown and James' system had managed to collect enough information to flesh out a basic profile of each player.
---
Hand Thirteen.
Two full orbits had passed without James seeing much action, and James was once again in the small blind.
No longer feeling like he was completely out of his depth, James looked down at his cards. He used his left hand to shield his cards from the view of the other players and his right hand to flick up the corners of each card.
Ace... The first card was an Ace, that was a good start.
Ace... The second card was also an Ace. James had lucked his way into the pocket rockets, the number one best hand in all of poker. Against any other starting pair, the Aces were an 80-20 favorite. At worst, the Aces were a 78-22 favorite against a suited eight-seven.
James tried to control his trembling hands and expression - this was finally a great chance for him to double his money in one go.
He looked over at Seat Six. Seat Six had played relatively loose, betting a large number of the last twelve hands. In fact, other than James, all of the players had shown their propensity to open and play a large number of hands, and did not seem very fazed by the thousands they had won or lost. They seemed almost bored.
"Raise to $10," Seat Six announced nonchalently.
Seat One called the bet quickly. There was now $23 in the pot.
Seat Two paused momentarily.
"Raise to $50," Seat Two said after pausing for just a beat. The pot was now $73.
James was inwardly excited. He held the best starting hand in all of Hold'em, and he didn't even have to work to build the pot. These players were doing it for him! All he needed to do was collect the harvest.
He knew he was going to push all his chips in now. Even if everyone folded, he would have increased his stack beyond his original $500.
James glanced over to his right. Phil was shuffling his chips and looking thoughtful.
"Please call, please call, please call..." James chanted to himself. The more money there was in the middle, the better it would be for him.
James glanced over to his right again. Phil had cut out a stack of red chips, and was adding a green chip on top. That did not look like calling chips. Was Phil going to raise? This was truly a dream come true for James' pocket aces.
"Raise $125." Phil announced, sliding the tall stack of chips towards the middle. There was now $198 in the middle.
[ System recommends you pretend to be deep in thought. ]
Before James could fist pump shove, his system had interrupted him with a recommendation.
[ Based on the current action, it may be possible to induce at least one other player to call your shove. This would increase your winnings significantly at a small cost to the probability. ]
James furrowed his eyebrows a little. He counted inwardly to ten. Then, softly, he said, "All In."
The other players woke up a little from their stupor and looked at James. This was the first aggressive move James had made so far.
"Fold. Fold. Fold. Fold." Four quick folds followed his announcement. Most of the other players believed James had a premium hand. Given his history of playing conservatively, it was unlikely he would shove without at least two kings in his hole cards.
James glanced over at Phil one more time. Phil had sat back in his chair and didn't look very happy.
"Finally woke up with a good hand Jamie James? Maybe some Aces? With your scared money, I don't believe you'd be out of line here," Phil said.
After about a minute, Phil sighed and called the bet.
"I really want to make a hero fold here. I know I'm behind. But, first, it's not really much money at all, and second, if I can give you a bad beat for all your money, that would make it so much sweeter." Phil indulged in a little soliloquy.
"Turn over your cards." The dealer announced.
Phil turned over his cards. Two red Kings. James turned over his cards. Two red Aces. It was a complete domination by James.
"I knew it! There's no way he doesn't have Aces there. I don't even think he'd shove Ace-King." Seat One turned to Seat Two.
"Yeah, when Old Man Coffee James stays in the pot, get out of the way." Seat Two responded.
[ Old Man Coffee - a common stereotype at casino poker games where you may see an old man sit down at a table drinking a cup of coffee, and play only the very best of hands. Used to denote a very tight player. ]
[ Your current play style is a very tight. If you were playing in a better game, it would be highly exploitable. However, System believes these players will find themselves an excuse to call most of the time anyway. They like to gamble too much. Ignore the table talk. ]
James didn't respond to the overheard comments. The dealer arranged the cards on either side of the table, and brought the chips into the middle. The pot was now $973.
"Run it once," Phil told the dealer, "I want to luck box James down to despair."
[ Run it X times - A common poker term in friendly high stakes cash games that tells the dealer how many times to deal the cards. For example, if you run it twice, the dealer would deal two sets of five community cards. Each set of cards forms an equal share of the pot. Thus, it is possible for players to split the pot, or win some but not all of the pot. The maximum acceptable number of times you can run in most places is four times. In some casino rooms, you can only run it twice. ]
"Running once." The dealer announced, before burning the top card of the deck.