Death On the Flop Page 11

  “Until I think you have a decent handle on it,” he said.

  Yikes. “That might not be until the start of the tournament.”

  “Oh, I’ll let you have a little nap. I don’t want you too tired for the tournament and besides, all you learn will be cemented into your brain by sleep,” he assured me.

  “Great, then you can really call me blockhead.”

  Chuckling, Frank waved at the table. “I’ve dealt extra hands so that you can see how the number of players changes the expected odds and the possible plays. You can expect to win a lot less with fewer players than with more. With more cards in play, full houses will win with regularity. With two players, called playing ‘heads-up,’ winning with a pair is common, and even a high card will claim the pot. You need to stop me and ask questions if I go too fast or use lingo you don’t understand.”

  I looked at my hand rankings cheat sheet again. “What are the suit rankings? If two players both have identical royal flushes, which suit wins?”

  “Good question. But the answer is, both flushes win and split the pot. In Hold ’Em all suits are equal, which should make it one less thing for you to worry about.”

  I nodded silently and reached toward my cards.

  “Stop.” Frank said. I froze. “First you need to set out your blind. Look for the dealer button. That’s in front of me. The player to the left of the dealer is the small blind, or half the minimum bet, the one to the left of him is the big blind, or the minimum bet for the first round. In Hold ’Em, blinds are used to seed the pot instead of an ante, like in other types of poker and gambling games. We will play ten-twenty. So ten is the small blind; twenty is the big blind. To stay in the game, the rest of the players will have to come up with at least twenty.”

  “So what is the advantage of being the small blind? If I want to stay in the game, I’ll have to ante up another ten anyway. Right?”

  “Right, but you have the advantage of seeing what everyone else bets. If the five guys after you all raise, and all you have are a two of hearts and an eight of clubs, you should fold. If everybody just calls, and you have a pocket ace, Queen then you might go ahead and call.”

  “A pocket ace?”

  “In your pocket means what’s in your hand—the two cards you were dealt.”

  I nodded, shoved one white chip in front of me, then picked up the two cards dealt face down at my place. Frank put his hand on mine to shove the cards back on the table. His hands were warm and broad with nice long fingers. Hmm.

  “Remember,” he said, tapping his thumb on my wrist. “Never pick your cards up off the table. Never. Just raise the corners, shielding them from others. Look at them just long enough to commit them to memory and let them back down again. Picking them up not only risks flashing them to others, it also signals you as a novice or a fish. Don’t look at them again.”

  He lifted his hand off mine. Internal sigh. I needed to get my focus back on the game. I made a mental promise to ignore the maleness of Frank from now on for Ben’s sake. I flipped up the corners, keeping my hand between the table on my side and his side. Queen of clubs and a three of clubs.

  “Better,” Frank approved, glancing at his cards. Then reaching around the table and putting each player’s chips out as a call. “We’re going to assume that all these guys stayed in to see The Flop. It doesn’t happen that often, but I want you to see how the cards play out if it does. So you need to call the big blind bet too for instruction’s sake.”

  I put another white chip on top of my small blind. “What’s The Flop? Sounds painful.”

  “Sometimes it is,” Frank agreed, as he took one card off the top of the deck and laid it face down off to the side.

  “What’s that?”

  “The burn card. Between each round of play, the dealer discards a card off the top of the deck on the off chance that anyone saw it during the deal or the last card up.” He threw the next three cards down in the center of the table face down, then scooped them up and flopped them face up: a five of hearts, four of clubs and seven of clubs.

  “That is a semipainful flop. Someone could be working on a club flush. Also a straight or a straight flush are possible. Someone with a low pocket pair could get lucky. It’s kinda risky to rely on one of those to win you a pot with this many players, though.”

  “So, how many cards are you going to be flopping out there in all?”

  “I’m sorry, I skipped that, didn’t I? I guess I don’t make a very good teacher.”

  “It probably depends on what you are teaching,” I suggested.

  He raised his right eyebrow. Oo-la-la. I didn’t mean that. But . . .

  Ben was missing. In less than thirty hours, I was playing in a tournament whose finals would be broadcast on national TV and I didn’t even know how many cards made a hand.

  Back to the cards, Bee.

  “Only the first three community, or shared cards, are called the flop. There are two more community cards dealt, the fourth called The Turn or Fourth Street and the final called The River or Fifth Street. You can use any three of the five community cards with your two cards to create your hand, or use all five cards up. That’s called ‘playing the board’,” Frank explained patiently. He seemed like he might be patient in everything. “Bee? Did you get that?”

  I nodded so hard I felt like a bobble head. Someone needed to slap some sense into me. I should’ve brought Shana after all.

  Frank sighed a standard I-don’t-get-women sigh, burned a card and threw the next card out. The Turn, I told myself. King of hearts.

  “Now that would be a scare card for anyone who was working on a straight or a flush, meaning the odds are pretty good that someone would have a pocket King and now a high pair and likely knock the others waiting for The River card out of the pot. But we’ll see.”

  Frank had everybody check the bet, meaning everyone held tight. “If that ever happens in a hand, which is unlikely at the level you’ll be playing, stay in. It doesn’t cost you anything to see The River, and it’s likely that no one has anything in his pocket better than what’s in yours.”

  Frank burned a card and threw the next card face up. Three of diamonds.

  I gasped.

  Frank put his hand over my mouth. I smelled the musk-morphed Dove up close. I sniffed. Yum.

  “Don’t do that!”

  “What? Don’t breathe?”

  “No, Bee, don’t make any noise at all when the cards are thrown. None. Zero. Swallow your tongue.”

  Hmm. I bit my lower lip.

  Frank was watching me sternly. Good thing he wasn’t reading my mind now. “Better,” he said. “Now usually, we’d have another round of betting. It could happen that some people fold now, as the cards have spoken and the only thing they might have left is a bluff. Some players might raise and possibly reraise the bet again before turning their cards.”

  “We’ll just pretend that happened, and turn everyone’s cards. Show me what you were all excited about.”

  I showed my three of clubs and Queen of clubs. Frank shook his head. “You should have been crying. With that in your pocket after The Flop you had hopes of a straight flush, at least a flush after The Turn, and an outside chance for a Queen to make a high pair. Still, you might win. Let’s see.”

  As he turned each hand over, he asked me what I would have done . . . fold, check, bet or raise. I was very slow at first, but by the fifth player’s bet I was a little more comfortable. Three of a kind and a full house both beat me in the end, though.

  Frank dealt another six hands like that, asking what I would’ve bet once we saw each player’s cards. I felt a lot more comfortable. Then he dealt only four players in the game and I felt like I was learning it all over again. My pair of threes was much more likely to win at a four-hand table. I had an ace high kicker once and won.

  “We can talk about probability and odds now. It’s straight math. Hopefully, you were on the business side of the ad business.”

  I shook m
y head apologetically. “Creative end, VP of high concept ideas and copy.”

  “Well, don’t sweat. If you graduated from junior high you can figure probabilities with a fifty-two-card deck, the cards you need as a fraction of the cards still out there.”

  “Oh geez, now not only do I have to ‘read’ other players’ body language, project my own confidence or insecurity depending on my strategy, memorize my cards, but I also have to do mathematical probability in my head?”

  Frank put down the stack of cards, rose and pulled my chair out. “I think you need a breather. Come here.”

  I followed him to the window, where he left me looking out over the sun setting on The Strip while he poured me a glass of Pinot Grigio. How he’d managed to get a bottle, not to mention remember that was what I drank last night, I’ll never know. He handed it to me. I noticed he didn’t pour himself one. Guess he was keeping his promise. So far.

  I thanked him but mustered my willpower and waved off the glass. “I think if I have to do algebra, I need a clear head.”

  He put the glass to my lips and I couldn’t resist a sip. Ah, nirvana.

  “Look,” Frank said, leaning his rump against the windowsill. “All this strategy I’m teaching you are all just tools. You don’t have to use all of them all the time. Furthermore, you shouldn’t use all of them all the time. Sometimes you won’t use any of them. Sometimes you just rely on your gut. It’s the ability to be flexible, to be able to play a mathematical hand and then a pure instinct hand that will make you an exceptional player. A lot of players, mostly those who play a lot on the Internet, play purely by figuring the odds and probabilities. That might work well when you can’t see your neighbor, but it won’t work as well when you can. This is still, in the end, a game my granddad played without graduating from grade school. It is still a game of people at the mercy of the luck of the draw that have to rely on instinct more than fractions.”

  “You’re just telling me that to make me feel more confident.”

  “I’m not. You can’t tell me that if you were sitting next to a true Rock, who computed the odds of every hand and never played out until he had the nuts, that you wouldn’t fold every time he even called?”

  “I’d fold for sure.”

  “See, then he wouldn’t win much on his guaranteed-to-win hand. It wouldn’t have as much value as it would if he’d played out a couple of borderline hands before and lost a little, right?”

  I shrugged. “I guess not.”

  “So the best advice I have for you for tomorrow is: Be unpredictable. No excuses, because in that you have an automatic advantage.”

  I cocked my head. “What do you mean, I have an automatic advantage?”

  “You are a woman, aren’t you?”

  Eleven

  Just when I was beginning to think Frank was the almost perfect man, save the ex-wife mystery and secret security job and alcoholism (hey, I did say almost), he had to say something chauvinistic.

  I stomped to the bar and jammed down my wineglass. The liquid splashed out onto my hand. “I hope you were joking,” I said self-righteously.

  He blinked. “Of course I wasn’t joking. Play to your strengths. It’s the trump card most women don’t use in Hold ’Em. They try so hard to ‘be like a man’ in order to get respect at the table, and they end up losing. Play like a woman and win, is what I say.”

  He was serious. And he was looking seriously sexy—with his dark blond hair standing on end in places where he’d run his hand through it when I’d asked something stupid, his intense dark eyes boring into me, his fingers caressing the felt on the table. I realized it had been much safer for me to be mad at him.

  I looked away and sighed. “Okay, Frank. I’ll play like a woman if you tell me why you really quit playing poker.”

  “I was tired of mind games.”

  There was a lot between the lines yet nothing I could read. Maybe I should go back and talk to Summer or Winter or whatever season the bartender was. I bet she knew more than she was saying.

  I reeled my thoughts back in. I could do that after I found Ben.

  His cell phone rang, and I jumped. Unfazed, Frank flipped it open and answered. He passed the phone to me. “Who is that young man?” Mom asked. “Have you found a new boyfriend already? I knew it wouldn’t take you long, dear, you are so attractive and smart, any man would be lucky to have you. What’s his name?”

  As always with Mom, she asked about five questions in one breath without waiting for an answer. It was convenient in this case because I didn’t want to answer any of them. I chose the easiest. “Frank answered the phone, Mom.”

  “Frank, a good solid name. Is he Catholic?”

  “Mom, why did you call?”

  “I was just checking to see how things were going. I looked on the Internet and I got a lot of gambling tips I can pass along to you, for slots, for roulette, for craps.”

  “Thanks Mom, but I think I’m only going to be playing a little Texas Hold ’Em.”

  “Really? Poker? Good for you. Is Frank going to play with you?”

  I grinned, unable to resist. “I don’t think Frank wants to play with me.”

  He raised that rascally right eyebrow and nodded. Uh-oh. I had to look away. Mom was still talking in my ear, “Ben says that Hold ’Em is fun. But he says he might not be able to play in that tournament you told me you two went to Vegas to participate in.”

  Whoa. “Mom, I thought you didn’t know we were coming. You talked to Ben about the tournament before we left?”

  “No, dear, Ben called about a hour ago.”

  I jumped up off the couch. Frank made it to me in two strides and put his ear close enough to hear Mom. I tried to calm the tension in my voice. “Mom, what did Ben say?”

  “Oh, this and that. He said he couldn’t talk long. He wanted to know if I’d talked to you. Silly, since you two are right there together. You aren’t on the outs with each other, now are you?”

  “No, Mom, we aren’t. It’s just Vegas is a big place.” I hoped she couldn’t hear my thundering heart. “We do our own thing mostly. We aren’t attached at the hip, you know.”

  Mom giggled. “I guess you did spend enough time together in utero.”

  Oh geez. Frank stifled a snort. I tried one more time. “Mom, did Ben say anything else?”

  “Well, he didn’t tell me about this Frank. I’ll have to get after him about that. A new beau in his only sister’s life and he can’t even mention him.”

  I sighed. Frank was chuckling silently. It wasn’t helping at all. “Did he say where he was calling from, Mom?”

  “No, Belinda, he didn’t. I did ask him to turn down the TV, though, which he didn’t do. It was so loud I could hardly hear what he said. And he sounded like he’d had a few drinks. In the middle of the day, and he was loopy.”

  Frank and I shared a look. Frank scribbled caller ID on the pad on the desk. I shook my head and wrote back, no, Dad thinks it smacks of Big Brother. Frank nodded, disappointed.

  Mom was rattling on about Maggie in her garden club getting her gallstones out. Frank made a hurry up motion with his hand. “Okay, Mom, thanks for calling. Anything you want me to tell Ben for you?”

  “Yes, dear, tell him I didn’t appreciate the way he hung up on me like that without saying good-bye. It was rude.”

  Frank and I looked at each other again. “That doesn’t sound like Ben.”

  “To tell the truth, I got the impression someone came into the room, probably a girl, and he didn’t want her to know he was talking to his mommy. You know our Ben.”

  “Why did you think that, Mom? Did you hear anyone else?”

  “Not really. It was hard to tell, the TV was on so loud. It was the Game Show Network, I could hear Bob Barker, which I thought was silly because Ben hates game shows. Probably the girl talked him into it.”

  Hmm. “Okay, Mom. If you talk to him again before I see him, give him Frank’s room number. I’m not sure he has it.”

&nb
sp; “You’re staying with Frank!” Uh-oh. Mistake. I groaned. “Isn’t that moving a bit fast, Belinda? You can’t have known each other more than a day. I’m worried about you. Of course, you aren’t getting any younger and I do want grandchildren, so maybe moving fast isn’t that bad an—”

  My turn to hang up on Elva. “Bye Mom, love you.”

  I punched the button to disconnect as she kept talking. Frank was doubled over, shaking, and I was afraid he was having a heart attack. Finally he made a weird noise, straightened and turned to me with a straight face. But his crow’s feet were still crinkled and his eyes were dancing. The jerk. He’d been laughing.

  “Thanks.”

  “You did a good job under difficult circumstances. I think if you can handle that, the Hold ’Em tournament is nothing.”

  “I’ve had forty years of experience with Mom and barely forty minutes of poker.”

  “We learned two good things,” Frank said, sobering completely as he returned to cop mode. I wish I could shift gears as cleanly as he could. Men had a special talent for compartmentalization, which I envied. And Frank was a real expert. “Ben is alive, or was an hour ago, likely being held hostage and drunk or, a less likely but better scenario, injured in a hospital on morphine. Then he would call your room and let you know. Check your messages again. Just in case.”

  I dialed. No messages.

  “Okay, let’s get something to eat, then I’ve got the best Hold ’Em book ever written for you to read while I do a little digging around about Stan and Conner.”

  I shook my head. “I think I should go watch some more Hold ’Em.”

  “Not without me you aren’t.”

  I really hated being bossed around, especially when I knew he was right.

  “I’ll help you dig then.”

  Frank shook his head. “This digging is going to be too dirty.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Who says I don’t like getting dirty?”

  I watched as his right eyebrow rose ever so slowly. “Okay, I’ll feed you then we’ll go get dirty.”

  The best thing I had to say about Las Vegas so far was that the food was sumptuous. Our room service brunch had been four star quality as was our dinner at the premier restaurant in the Luxor, whose food, décor and atmosphere put us so in Egypt that I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a Cleopatra at the next table. I wasn’t one given easily to fantasy but this town had a way of putting reality on hold.