FREERUSHING

FREERUSHING
By John Vorhaus

Hello, friends. I have to tell you I'm pretty excited right now, because today (Christmas Day, 2006) I finished and delivered the manuscript to my new novel, KILLER POKER: THIS GAME IS MURDER. You can look for it under your tree by Christmas, 2007, but in the meantime, I thought I'd tease you with a taste: the moment our hero, Hal Harris, plays poker for the first time and discovers, as so many have before him, what a rush the game can be.

Even when you end up wining nothing at all...

Skip told Hal that they'd wait for the button to pass before joining the game. "We could come in on the blind," said Skip, "but we'll come in after, take our first hand in position." This didn't make much sense to Hal, though he'd seen enough poker to know that the person to the dealer's left had to post a small blind, a dollar in this case, and the person to that player's left had to post a big blind, two bucks here. After each hand, the dealer button moved one place to the left, so that all players took equal turns putting up the forced bet or, alternatively, getting to look at their starting cards for free.

After the button passed, Skip put up his $2 post, and instructed Hal to do the same. Hal watched as several players called the opening bet. When the action got around to Skip, he pushed forward his two stacks of twenty red $5 chips and growled theatrically, "All in. Call if you don't like assignable value pieces of plastic."

Hal folded, then everyone else folded. Skip leaned over to Hal and whispered, "Grandstand overbet. Sets my tone."

"Did you have good cards?"

"Who cares? They never call your first all in."

Which flawed piece of poker folk wisdom intersected with Slaughter Johnson's Blackjack Attack on the very next hand, when Hal picked up A -J . Everyone folded around to him and he pushed all his chips in, just like Skip. Unlike Skip, he issued no truculent challenge, for his mouth had suddenly turned too dry to speak. The button and small blind folded - but the big blind called. At the dealer's instruction, both players turned over their hands.

The big blind had A-A .

Panic swept over Hal. He broke out in a sweat, oddly, on the soles of his feet. "I thought you said they never called!" he croaked.

"Well, they do when they got aces," said Skip. "Never fear, you got outs."

"'Outs'?"

"As in 'out of the crap.' Cards you can win with." Skip read the dealer's name tag and said, "Rosemary, my donk here really needs a couple of jacks, m'kay?" The dealer said nothing as she slipped the top card off the deck face down, then turned the next three cards - the flop - face up. A ten, a six, and...

"A jack! I got a jack!"

"Yeah, now all you gotta do is find another one."

The dealer burned another card and placed a king adjacent to the other cards. Hal's face fell. "No jack."

"Hang on," said Skip, as Rosemary burned and turned the final card. A queen. Skip smiled with satisfaction. "Yeah," he said, "you split the pot."

"No I don't. He has aces."

"You both have a straight, numb nuts."

Hal studied the community cards, the ones that all players use to complete their best five card holding, and it slowly sank in that he'd been saved. With a final board of J-T-6-K-Q, each player used an ace from his hand to complete the straight. "He doesn't have to play both his cards?" asked Hal.

"Nope. Just the ace." Rosemary split the pot in two and passed Hal his half. Within thirty seconds, Hal had gone from panic to despair to elation... and ended up right back where he started from. Skip glanced at him and seemed to read his mind. "That," said Skip, "is what we call freerushing. Cool, huh?"

It was cool. Hal had to admit it. As Rosemary pitched him his cards, he felt an odd tingle of anticipation, wondering what the next hand would bring. Then, as if looking over his own shoulder, he caught himself, and realized where he was and what he was doing. Playing poker! His brother Guy would have freaked a little if he saw this. In truth, Hal was freaking a little as he did it.

And then an odd thing happened. Hal fell into the moment so completely that he lost track of everything else. He discovered, as so many had discovered before him, the true enchantment of poker: its capacity to make the rest of the world disappear. The past ceased to exist. The future extended no further than the next two cards. Christmas cards, thought Hal, in the sense that every hand was a gift box waiting to be opened. Most of the time, the box was empty - junk cards - and he had to fold his hand. He found he didn't care. Even when he wasn't in the hand, there was just so much to watch.

That guy scratching his nose, thought Hal, does that mean something? Is it a tell? Or does his nose just itch? No, there's something on his mind. Look how he looks at his chips. He wants to bet. He can't wait to bet! Man, if I were in a hand against him, I'd fold in a heartbeat. But what if he doesn't look at his chips? Does that mean he's weak? Can you just take the pot away then? My God, that's how you bluff!

So begins the education of Hal Harris: poker player. Without giving away too much, let me tell you that his education will take him all the way to the Poker Apocalypse, "the biggest poker tournament in the history of ever." There will be some death threats along the way; a love interest; and a hundred-pound hound named Minty McGinty. I think you'll enjoy the read, come Christmas '07.

That Hal became so completely ensorcelled by poker - even in fiction -should not come as a big surprise. Poker a very compelling game; perhaps the most compelling game there is. Think about it: Do you know anyone who started playing poker who's stopped playing poker?

Nah, me neither.