However, the average Uk poker player follows this adage blindly and all the time. This is a distinct mistake, particularly if your two pairs are very small. Remember, there is an excellent chance that the opener, particularly if he has opened under the guns, also has two pairs or better.

Now, since your two pairs are small, the chances are that the opener's hand will be better than yours. And if several people are in the pot, there is a distinct likelihood that one of them may be sandbagging. Hence, since the odds are twelve to one against improvement, there is no point in your starting to build up a big pot for someone else.

Of course, if you feel reasonably certain that no other player has as good a hand as you, it is good tactics to raise. True, with several people in the pot the chances are that one will draw out against you; but the odds you are getting for your money are much better than this chance.

Another advantage of not raising with two pairs after several people come into the pot lies in the fact that now if you draw one card, the other players are more than likely to assume that you are drawing to a straight or a flush, and if you do make your full house and someone else makes a high flush, you will get a far better play than if you had raised before the draw.

A very interesting question in the play of two pairs is when, if ever, to throw one of them away. This play in poker roughly corresponds to the Grand Coup in contract. I know the Grand Coup well-in fact; six years ago I actually made it. Similarly, I expect someday to throwaway the smaller of two pairs but have never yet found the right time. However, I do remember my father telling me how he made the play once under the following circumstances:

The game was Jack Pots with a limit. Player A opened the pot. Father raised, holding a pair of fours, a pair of twos, and an ace. Player A now stayed for the raise and drew one card. This marked him with two good-sized pairs since Father was sure he would have raised back with aces up or three of a kind. Hence, Father proceeded to throw away his pair of deuces and hold a pair of fours and an ace. On this draw his chance of making aces up or better was one in five--a much better chance than the one in twelve of making a full house on a one-card draw. Sure enough, Father caught an ace and with aces up won the pot.

Incidentally, without the ace it would have been good tactics to draw three cards, although the percentage in this instance would not have been nearly as good as when holding the ace kicker.

The Block System

The purpose of this type of Draw Poker played in St.

Louis and many other Middle Western and Southern cities, is to create plenty of action and at the same time put the "tight" player at a disadvantage rather than at an advantage, as he is in most poker games.

As a starter the dealer places twenty-five chips in the pot, representing a nineteen-chip ante, a two-chip blind opening by the player at his left and a raise to four chips by the second player. The third player now has the right to make the first actual bet, and he may either call the four chips or raise to six. The limit a player may raise before the draw is two chips, and as each player raises he announces what he is raising to. Thus, the first player to raise says, "Six"; the second, "Eight"; etc.

After the draw the limit for anyone raise is the total amount bet by each player before the draw. Thus, if the last raise before the draw was to twelve chips, the limit after the draw is twelve chips; if the last raise was to twenty, the limit is twenty chips.

In order to increase competition, Dogs and Tigers (see Local Option Hands in Chapter Thirteen) are counted in addition to regular poker hands. Therefore, in addition to four flushes and open-end straights, there is any number of hands that present attractive possibilities before the draw, including a new one-the twelve-chance hand. For example, a player with a king, jack, ten, and nine may draw an ace and make a Big Dog, draw a queen and make a straight, or draw an eight and make a Big Tiger.

Since it apparently costs the first player four chips to come into the pot and there are already twenty-five there, he figures he is getting better than six to one for his money and is encouraged to stay on any eight-chance hand or a small pair. Subsequently, anybody with a twelve-chance hand, a four flush, two pairs, or even a pair of aces or kings is likely to raise. In actuality, a liberal player with two good-sized pairs or a twelve-chance hand is likely to raise the pot as many as ten or twelve times, particularly if there are five or six others in it. Furthermore, once a player starts in a pot at all, since the raises are only two chips at a time, he is likely to stay right through to the bitter end on the theory that the particular raise he is faced with will be the last.

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