Poker: On Standing Pat and the Doubles

Standing pat on one pair is a maneuver that one frequently sees succeed.

A player doubles you before the buy; presumably on two pairs. You double back; he accepts your re-double; now, holding (say) a pair of Kings, you stand pat and make some sort of bet after the buy.

To double again would normally be inadvisable; you are increasing a pot (at your own expense) where you are not holding the winning hand.

But if you are allowed to chip, and you do chip in the normal way, a careful player will, as likely as not, throw his cards in.

Of course, you have to show your openers, and a player who has seen you brig off this coup once is likely to remember it for a long time.

So it should only be very sparingly resorted to.

In standing pat on two pairs, since the odds against improving two pairs are 10 and three-fourths to one, you are losing little by attempting this semi-bluff occasionally.

You will, of course, follow it up by a double after the buy. Now, if the next player to speak has, say, Kings up, he will probably throw in, for there is still another player to speak who may put up another double.

So now he's out of the way, and if the third player has only two pairs, or has failed to fill a flush or straight, he will throw in too.

Against this argument there must, of course, be set the important consideration that the odds are against your having been dealt a pat hand are about 130 to one.

Bets made by players other than the opener--- so many situations fall for consideration here that to attempt to analyze them logically would be about as profitable as attempting to forecast what a number of monkeys in a cage would be likely to do next.

There are seven players at the table, of whom the reactions of two or three may be more or less predictable; the others will be doing all they can to get the better of one another.

Thus, a double after the pot has been opened may mean:

The doubler has pair of Aces; or that he has two pairs; or that he has threes; or that he has a pat hand; or that he has a bobtailed flush.

Not all these are intelligent doubles but, it is unlikely that they are all intelligent players, and any of these doubles is possible.

A double on two Aces has something to commend it; if no other players enter the pot, the doubler can buy either two cards or three: he need not decide until he has seen how many the opener buys.

A doubler on two pairs is more or less de rigeur if the doubler if the first player to come in after the opener. A doubler on threes can't, normally be wrong--- unless they are very good threes and the doubler is 'lurking'.

A double on a pat hand may drive prospective clients away, but it won't do so if the doubler is not known to be a tight player.

And a double on a bobtailed flush, though definitely foolish--- since it shortens the odds laid by the pot--- is none the less frequently made, and, if the flush eventuates, has been a useful piece of advertising.