By: Paul Sanders

I live in New York and sometimes play poker on the day trip cruise boats that run off the coast of New York. A good friend of mine told me that there was a great hold'em game on Sunday afternoons on a particular cruise, after the boat had docked. I went and played a $20-$30 Texas hold'em game. I could tell some of the players weren't very good but I had no idea how bad until the following hand. I was the $20 big blind and was dealt the eight of clubs and the three of clubs. There were 5 or 6 callers and I checked my option to raise. The flop was three clubs: queen, seven, and four.

I bet $25, hoping that no one else had two clubs in the hole. I got 3 callers. Now you would think that my bet would tell everybody that I had at least one club in my hand. The turn card was the ace of clubs. I decided to try to scare out the other players by betting $10 more. Two players folded and then the next player raised $10 and the last player called $20. I had to assume that at least one of these two players had me beat. I couldn't call another $10 this round and possibly another $10 after the river card. So, sadly I ended up folding. The river card was a blank. This made the nut high hand the king of clubs. The first player bet $10 and the other player called. I was shocked to see my competition show a deuce of clubs and the caller show that he had no clubs at all! I was an amazing round which I was not prepared for. I didn�t expect these novice players to bet in such a professional manner.