Getting the trump out

There was a period about 20 years ago when I played quite a bit of family whist. I was never any good, but the point was to have fun, and I succeeded on that score. My stepmother, who is an excellent player, tried to teach us all some basic strategy. The cardinal lesson she taught us was to "get the trump out". That is, if you won the bidding, and so were the declarer of which suit was the trump suit, it was of the first importance to lead trump as soon as it was legal to do so, and keep leading it until you'd flushed out all the trump cards in the possession of your opponents; in that way, you couldn't get a nasty surprise later. If you neglected to get the trump out, you could end up allowing your opponent to trump you, which of course would be the utmost in folly. Needless to say, I didn't always follow that sound advice, and my stepmother would always be amazed that I could err in that fashion.

I ran into a poker situation on Saturday night which brought back to mind my stepmother's dictum. Actually, it was two almost identical situations, and I had the same bad result each time. I realize now that slow playing a strong hand, while in principle a great strategy, can have dire consequences if it's followed blindly. In particular, there are some strong hands which I now see shouldn't be slow payed in some circumstances. To wit, the old-girlfriend-who-has-broken-up-with-me-so-many-times-but-who-I-still-love-anyway hand, the stealth two pair. Stealth two pairs with a straight or flush draw on the board can't be slow played. I realize this is poker 101 to many, but I had to learn it in the school of hard knocks.

Not just once on Saturday, but twice, I had a stealth two pair of aces and tens. Each time, I slow played the hand, congratulating myself on how masterful I was and drooling over the big pot I was sure to rake in. Each time, I failed to notice that there was a straight draw on the board. Each time, I lost to a straight. To underline how foolish I was, I can even remember thinking the second time I got the hand "This one screwed me before, but it can't screw me again -- I'm golden!"

The second stealth two pair was my last hand of the night; I went all in on it and hit the felt. I think this particular lesson has sunken into my poker synapses now.

delta: $-40,000
balance: $445,542