March 11, 2005

San Antonio Express-News

Whenever I look down at my hole cards and see pocket jacks in a game of Hold 'Em, I never know which side of the emotion pendulum I should be swaying toward: horror or delight.

Statistically, it is one of the best starting hands in the game. Jacks can hold up against as many as four players with random hands and win over 50percent of the time.

Poker advice publications and professionals advise to aggressively bet with this hand, citing it as a "premium" or "level one" hand. This means it occupies the same space on the ladder of power as a pair of aces, kings or queens.

The mentality is that these hands often don't need any help to remain the best, from beginning to end. An aggressive raise with a quality hand behind it will get a lot of players with potentially dangerous cards such as 8s-6s out of the hand. The raise also allows a good payoff if a few players call your bet, because you'll likely have the best hand at that point.

Then there is the other side of the pendulum. The reality that there are three overcards to a jack and the chances of one of those showing up in the community are nearly 60 percent.

If you don't succeed in getting a lot of players out of the hand pre-flop, you are suddenly in a lot of danger with a wide assortment of cards. Any ace or a king is a serious scare card that may wipe out your chances of holding the best hand if there are more than two players still involved.

Depending on position, the majority of players out there will enter a hand with anything 9 or higher when paired with a king or ace in the hole. There is a little less to worry about with the queen, but that card also brings danger as an overcard. Your best hope is your opponents are holding a smaller pocket pair.

During a recent trip to Las Vegas, I was involved in a tournament at Binion's Horseshoe Casino, where I was fortunate enough to make the final table out of a 90-player field. The table was whittled down to seven, when I was dealt our famous hand of the hour (Jh-Jd) with a modest chip stack.

In a desperate bid to stay alive, the short-stacked player pushed all of her chips in pre-flop. I easily had her covered, and it was an easy call for me to make. However, since I had the jacks, I was terrified of a flop like K-10-4 with any additional players in the pot. I chose to move all of my chips in, which was about 11,000 over the short stack.

There was a caller, and he had me covered by one measly chip, forcing me to almost swallow my toothpick.

Dealer commands us to turn over our cards, and to my surprise, I wasn't against any paired aces or kings. My jacks were the best hand at the time, but I was fighting against the small stack's K-Q - and more importantly - the A-Q held by the player who had me covered. The three overcards gave me only a 40 percent chance to win the hand from that point on.

The flop was good: 8s-4h-10c. The turn was better with a 4d. Then, that cold, cruel lady the Queen of Clubs showed her ugly face on the river. I was out.

Horror, although I don't regret making the move. Sometimes, you just have to gamble.

The lingo

Scare card: A card whose likelihood of improving an existing hand is great.

Short stack: The player at the table with the fewest chips.

Poker fans will now find an entire section of ESPN.com dedicated to the game they love - including a free online poker game for users over the age of 18.

The first 11 weeks of play on ESPN.com will be exclusively devoted to the Degree(R) All-In Poker Challenge, a series of weekly qualifying tournaments that lead to a final 500-player tournament in May, with the winner earning a seat in the Harrah's 2005 World Series of Poker courtesy of Degree(R).

The Degree(R) All-In Poker Challenge is the only completely free way online to earn a seat in the Harrah's 2005 World Series of Poker. Each Sunday at 2pm ET for 10 weeks, ESPN.com will hold a Sunday Qualifying Tournament that will include all players that qualified in the week prior.

Each week, players will have four ways to earn a spot into the weekly Sunday Qualifying tournament: play 750 hands during the week from any combination of the games offered; win five single-table tournaments (10 players, available at any time); win one multi-table tournament (30 players, start every 20 minutes); or finish high enough in the rankings of a Big Play tournament.

The top 50 players each Sunday will earn a seat in the Finals tournament beginning May 15 at 2pm ET. The winner of the Finals tournament will earn the seat in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas in June.

In coming months, the initiative will also launch a wireless poker game; a poker-related book from ESPN Books by syndicated poker columnist Steve Rosenbloom; DVD's of the 2004 World Series of Poker and the ESPN Original Entertainment series TILT; and a line of high-end poker-related consumer products.