In the land of no pair no draw

It’s become a yearly ritual. Packing up for spring break just south of Daytona Beach in the lovely town of Daytona Beach Shores. It sports miles of few crowds, wide, white sand beaches that stretch on for miles, great food, and a short drive to the land of the $2 big bet.

The Daytona dog track has a large, smoke-free poker room where you can play seven card stud, Texas hold Em, and variation called Daytona Hold Em that includes a $2 anti. I played Daytona once last year and found it to be a gamblers wet dream. Basically you throw your bets in and nobody folds.

Ever.

The $2 Hold Em game is a lot of fun however. It often features a number of retirees spending the heat of the day playing some pretty good poker. Those people you have to watch out for, when they bet it’s time to get out of the pot because they have a real hand. The other players are pretty poor and will call down any bet and hope to get lucky.

I actually saw a woman call all the way to the end with a suited Jack, four. The flop brought Ace, King, three with two suited cards that were NOT her suit. She called a bet with no draw and no pair. She then caught runner-runner to win and went on to explain that that happened all the time and you couldn’t win if you folded.

THOSE are the people you love to have in the game. Yes, they suck out a win now and then, my aces went down to a suited 93 in middle position, but on the long term they donate to a quality player’s bankroll.

I started out a down about 35 big bets because my live-action game skills were a little rusty and the donkeys gave me second best a few times, but I stuck to my game and ended the week up about 40 big bets. The highlight was on day three where I sat down in the big blind and won my first four hands: AJ won top pair, A7 suited in the small blind turned the nut flush and I was bet into the entire hand, A10 flopped an ace and then turned into a 10-high straight on the river, and then JJ stood up to 9 high betting all the way.

Immediately I was up 34 big bets and held on to stay up 23 big bets for the day.

I added a little real gambling when we went to the dog track one night and had some nice pocket money for the week. I correctly picked the quinella (first two place winners) THREE times to pocket a cool $60.

Here’s my quinella system: mentally average the last five races and find out the three or four dogs with the fastest times and then choose the two that have shown improvement for the last three races. It seems to work pretty well and it’s just a $2 bet.

The $2 theme is a lot of fun :-)