Tournament Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
Practice Matters
During the writing of this book I visited Doyle Brunson,
During the writing of this book I visited Doyle Brunson, publisher and author of How I Made Over $1,000,000 Playing Poker (1978), several times at his B and G office in Las Vegas. On one of these occasions I met with Doyle Brunson, Bobby Baldwin, the sensational young winner of the 1978 World Series Hold Em Tournament, and "Crazy Mike" Caro, who in my opinion is one of the five best Five Card Draw Poker players in the world. This meeting turned out to be a five-hour Poker talkathon with a good portion of time devoted to my entertaining Brunson, Baldwin and Caro with a number of card tricks with which I have at one time or another baffled the world's top magicians including Houdini, Thurston, Nate Leipzig, and Dunninger. Brunson reached into his desk drawer and produced a deck of playing cards. After thoroughly shuffling the deck he handed it to me and said, "Scarne, let's see you do one of those card miracles I've seen you perform on dozens of television shows."
"Okay, Brunson, I'll do just that,"
"Okay, Brunson, I'll do just that," I replied as I fanned the deck face down across his office desk. I continued, "I'm now going to turn my back to you gentlemen and while my back is turned, I want each of you Poker champs to select one card from the deck, memorize its value, and return it to the deck face down. After the three cards have been replaced in the deck, I want Brunson to shuffle the deck."