The Making of a Poker Player

Author: Matt Matros
Publisher: High Stakes
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Introduction

The Mohegan Sun poker room was a welcoming place. Anyone with $30 in his pocket could sit down among the bamboo and the TV mon itors and receive his very own poker hand, along with a warm smile from the dealer. My friends had told me how great it was, how much fun they'd had losing their money over a green felt table. I had a prob lem, though-I hated losing money.

So before I made the trip to Uncasville, Connecticut, I did some studying. I read a book. And I was silly enough to think that would give me an advantage over people who'd been playing the game for years.

That's how I convinced myself to make the one-hour trip from my dorm room in New Haven; and that's how I found myself in the mid dle of a hand, peering at three cards sitting faceup on the table. There were two fours and a queen. These were community cards, part of every player's hand. If they helped someone else's hand, chances were they didn't help mine. In front of me, facedown, were my two hole cards: an ace and a queen. In most of the hands until now, I had been throwing away my hole cards before any others were dealt, not want ing to pay even $3 to continue. The book told me to do this.

Finally involved in a hand, I tried my best not to be nervous. Most people get uncomfortable when real money that can buy real things in the real world is on the line. That book I'd read, Winner's Guide to Texas Hold'em Poker by Ken Warren, said if you thought of $6 in poker chips as a ticket to a matinee, or a personal pizza, or anything that six bucks could buy away from the table, then you had already

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