Using the numbers and poker
I spent another Saturday at a poker seminar hosted by Antonio Pinzari, a pro based in Lake Worth who also runs a dealer's school. He spent most of the day concentrating on the math, what hand are worth playing, which aren't.
The main points: straights are the winningest hand in Texas Hold 'em if you play to the river, because it's a seven-card game. Pocket pairs and Ace-King (Big Slick) are overrated. Overcards put you in mortal danger.
Pinzari is on each Monday on the Poker Talk America show I wrote about last week (see link below), and I'm thinking the numbers he came up with would be good fodder for an article.
That, with the usual caveat, which Antonio himself acknowledges: poker is really about reading people, not numbers.
NICK SORTAL began playing 3-card "gut" and "Indian poker" on high school band trips, moved on to "night baseball" and "pass the trash" during a Dr. Pepper-infused midnight game in the 1980s at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and now play in a regular neighborhood Hold 'Em game in Plantation. I have been given the assignment of writing about the gambling life in South Florida casinos for the Sun-Sentinel...which means sitting around watching poker on TV now counts as research.
