A pocket pair is nothing to sneeze at. Especially at Texas Holdem where all your 2 hole cards are yours.
I have flopped 4 of a kind (I held pocket 4s) having survived much raising and re-raising before the community cards were dealt.
I endured their raising because there was no other pair on the board. I knew I had the hand to beat their Aces full and the straight that was lurking open the periphery.
But I was anti-fragile because the hand I needed to win was one where I would have had to hold on to the pocket 4s to make it. Which I did.
I have held pocket 2s while everyone around me chased straights and flushes (the fastest way to go home broke on city buses) and was complimented for my commitment to a made hand. The 3rd 2 came at the river of course. But that is the point.
I have never had Jacks hold up. Even at the final table of a tournament I watched my pocket Jacks get outstripped. 9s, I raise with. Pocket Jacks, these days? I barely hold them.
It is the one thing about Poker that I have known for decades. Doyle Brunson famously won with 10-2 off suit and that tells me everything about how to play Poker and avoid disappointment. I have seen A-K and A-A all fail. I myself sat there with a 7 high straight while the bullets next to me kept raising. No one thinks they can win with rags. They play the face cards and the top pairs and opening hands as though they are owed big pots for getting dealt good cards. But the skill required to chew through a hand where you are holding cards over 90 percent of players would fold? That is what gets you to the final table.
No one expects you to raise with 5s. Or even call their raise. they expect you to run away when they come back over the top.
But when the flop falls 6-4-4, it is obvious to any player what is about o happen to the Q-Q now hoping for a Full House with what they believe is the strongest pair. Then the 3 comes on the turn and anyone with any experience counting g knows the 7 that falls on the river was inevitable. The 5-5 now has a straight and the Q-Q can only remain baffled at what they are calling ‘Luck’.
But this 5-5 holder folded A-J the previous hand and raised with Pocket 10s 2 hands prior to that to flop a 3rd 10 and Chase away everyone with his raising.
While the world is betting on the obvious, I suggest we all put some faith in underdogs and those without a voice. A 30 to 1 underdog, Maidstone, hit in The English FA Cup yesterday. The Detroit Lions are in a game no one, including themselves, thought they’d be playing. Xavier resigned from Barcelona. Something Barcelona managers never do.
Aspects of the world are inverting.
Now, you might think games and sports do not matter because the world is on fire. Long term, you might be right. Short term, though, people are inspired by what they see. What needed to be seen to be believed.
From the Washington Post’s report:
Manager George Elokobi, a former Wolverhampton Wanderers defender, finished his playing career at Maidstone in 2022. He was appointed Maidstone’s caretaker manager in January 2023 and was hired to the full-time job in March. (Elokobi also made a cameo as a Manchester City player during the third season of “Ted Lasso.”)
It is once again the season of the unexpected and I urge you to remember, that in all things, no one actually knows what will happen. So, put some faith in what people will not believe until they see it. That is how we will evolve.