Puerto Rican Poker – No-fold'em hold'em is everywhere

Recently, my wife, Olga, and I celebrated our anniversary by spending a few days snorkeling and sightseeing in Puerto Rico. We were pleasantly surprised to find that several casinos in San Juan had added a few poker tables to their operations in the past year. What better way to spend our anniversary than snorkeling all day and playing poker all night! At the very first casino we visited, the manager and several players who recognized me were very gracious about inviting Olga and me to join them in their very friendly little limit hold'em game. The manager proudly informed us that down in San Juan, they play Puerto Rican poker.

I suspected that what the casino manager called Puerto Rican poker, I had also experienced or heard it termed Greek poker, Hungarian poker, lottery poker, no-fold'em hold'em, and many other names (pick your favorite nationality and add the word poker). It reminded me of the time when "Syracuse" Chris Tsiprailidis told me that when he plays Greek poker and folds before the flop, he is eyed with great suspicion and is considered antisocial. I love playing Puerto Rican poker, or lottery poker, or whatever you want to call it. Although your results can be volatile and frustrating, it is a fun, social action game in which almost everybody's in before the flop if there's no raise. The big-blind bet effectively becomes an ante, and you're always starting out with a big pot. Big pots mean big pot odds, which means you can play the maximum number of playable hands. But watch out for the river, it can be a killer!

Within a few minutes after sitting down, Olga raised with K-Q suited and got nine callers. She flopped top two pair and bet, and half the table called. The turn was a harmless-looking card, she bet, and got a couple of callers. The river was a harmless-looking 4, she bet, and got called by an enthusiastic young new player. Olga showed her top two pair, and as she prepared to collect the pot, the young whippersnapper turned up his pocket fours and took down the pot with a set of fours that he had nailed on the river. One of the players sitting beside me explained that people in their game often play to the river if they have something. A couple of hours later, I found myself betting top two pair to the river with the same young whippersnapper calling me all the way with his pocket eights. Yes, of course, he hit an 8 on the river, taking a nice pot and briefly leaving me in a state of confusion. These fierce rivers seemed to plague us all night, but when Olga or I won pots, they were usually just as big or bigger than the ones we lost.

There was a period of about a half-hour when I was getting very bad hands and didn't play any. I started thinking that the deck had somehow become mostly deuces, threes, and fours. During this time, a player sitting beside me remarked that I wasn't playing enough hands, as their custom is to stay in unraised pots with any hand. I acknowledged that I understood that there's no such thing as a bad hand, just bad flops, but I just couldn't play every hand. I continued to defend my actions by stating that even for these small stakes, I couldn't bring myself to play hands that contained a deuce unless I had at least an ace or king kicker. Deuces are the worst cards in the deck. I just can't play them! Even if we were playing for M&M's or pretzels, I just couldn't play those hands with a deuce unless I was in the big blind or had a pair of deuces. I just can't play them!

Olga and I had a great time snorkeling with some colorful fish by day and playing poker with piranhas by night. After a while, we realized that we weren't playing for the river as much as we were praying for the river. We even ended our poker sessions up a few dollars! We had a wonderful trip and enjoyed the opportunity to play some Puerto Rican poker.

Robert is the 2002 World Series of Poker champion and the instructor on the WiseGuys on Texas Hold'em videos, starring some famous actors from the Sopranos. The videos are very informative, as well as entertaining, and are available at wiseguyson.com.