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This is a hindsight moment.

The first time I played poker was with some old college friends who I'd been out of touch with for years. I was into soccer betting at the time and was told: you'll love poker - it's all about value.

So I played a £20 PLHE home game and won reasonably big: partly beginner's luck, partly magic mushrooms, partly natural hand-reading skills.

Well, I was pretty stoked about this and the next night switched some betting money to poker and played $30 PLHE online. Pretty quickly I was up to $100. Piece of pis*, this game. I went downstairs nd informed my wife that she'd need to watch this - it was liable to be addictive. Then I went back upstairs and played on, moving upto $150.

The hand. I'm dealt AA. There is another big stck at the table and I figure he's itching to play back at me. I raise, he pots, I smooth call. Flop is A1010. Bingo. All the money goes in by the river. I hadn't given any thought to what this grinder might be stacking off with. I mean, I've got the nuts, right?

It was quads, obviously. I lost the lot and felt incredibly numb. Looking back, that was the best thing that ever happened to me in poker. From that day forth, I've only bet with the nuts. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

Seriously though, I think I've been able to manage bad beats and variance better than many players do when starting out because of that hand.

FWIW, a couple of months later, I folded the big boat on the river and villain showed quads (not sure I'd do this now): all strength is relative until it's absolute.