I love playing poker with my closest friends on Friday nights, guys like Bull, Nerds, Chicken, Fox, and Prime Time.
I can’t tell you how many times people have approached me at gas stations, restaurants, and other public places in West Monroe, Louisiana, to tell me that I play poker with their father, brother, son, or husband.
The conversation undoubtedly starts like this: “Hey, Si, you play poker with my dad. His name is Bob so-and-so.”
“Nope, I’ve never heard of him,” I’ll say.
“Oh, he says he plays with you,” the lady will say. “He’s a big tall guy with red hair and a goatee. He works down at the bank.”
“Oh,” I’ll say. “You’re talking about Chicken.”
As long as we’re not filming Duck Dynasty or I’m not out of town hunting or traveling to some event, I usually play poker with my buddies about once a week. It’s what we like to do for fun, and I love spending a few hours with some of my closest friends. It’s a great time for fellowship and entertainment.
I love playing poker with my closest friends on Friday nights, guys like Bull, Nerds, Chicken, Fox, and Prime Time.
I still don’t know most of their real names, even after playing poker with those guys all of these years. To me, their names are Bull, Nerds, Chicken, Fox, Prime Time, The Counselor, Pim, and Curly Don. I’m sure their families call them by their actual names, but I wouldn’t know what they are. All of those guys are great people. We don’t get mad at each other while we’re playing poker, even if one of us is losing. I know that if any one of us were in a bind, the rest of us would give him the shirts off our backs.
I grew up playing card games, board games, and dominoes with my brothers, sisters, and parents. Now that I’m older, I still play those games with my kids, grandkids, nephews, and nieces. The Robertsons have always been a competitive family, and we like to play each other in any game that involves chance. I’ll play about any card game: solitaire, blackjack, hearts, gin rummy, go fish, war, crazy eights, spit, spades, Uno, old maid, and even euchre.
But Texas Hold’em poker is absolutely my favorite card game to play. If you really want to learn about the Texas Hold’em game, there are plenty of books about it. ESPN and other TV networks broadcast poker tournaments all the time, and I like to watch them to see how the pros play. But if you really want to learn to play, you need to ask yourself this very important question: What does the Book of Si say about playing Texas Hold’em, Jack?
Here’s the deal, right out of the gate: If you want to play Texas Hold’em for entertainment purposes only, then what I’m about to tell you probably isn’t good advice. You can play the game for fun and still win every once in a while. But if you’re going to play the game, I think you should at least set your mind to trying to win. You don’t even have to play for money, but when I sit down at a table, I’m in it to win it, Jack!
Now, my number-one rule in poker is the same number-one rule in life: Keep your life in order. If your relationships are good with the Almighty, your wife or girlfriend, and your family and friends, then it’s probably okay to have some extracurricular activities like playing poker. If things aren’t good at home, however, you need to spend your time making them right. That’s the most important rule in poker.
Before you sit down at a table, determine what your goals and objectives are going to be that night. If you play for money and you need to pay bills and support your family with your extra money, then choose your family and don’t play poker. If you don’t have a lot of disposable income, hey, only play for fun or low stakes—maybe the price of movie tickets for you and your honey, and also a bucket of popcorn with butter and a candy bar if you need it. If your truck payment or rent is riding on your poker hand, you shouldn’t be sitting at a table. Do not shirk your responsibility as the breadwinner in your family. Make sure you have your life right and your ducks in a row before you pick up a hobby like playing poker.
Rule number two: Surround yourself with card players similar to yourself. You don’t want to be sitting at a card table with a bunch of cheaters and crooks. Hey, do you know why poker isn’t allowed in Africa? Because of all the cheetahs, Jack! Too many people are trying to make a living at a game. It’s a game, folks. Only play with other people who have the same mind-set as you. Don’t get mixed up playing cards with people who aren’t there to have fun and enjoy each other’s company. Try to play poker with people you enjoy being around. It’s a good rule of Si.
Like I said earlier, I play cards for fellowship and entertainment. When I first started playing cards with my boys, I told them, “I’m only in this for the fun and fellowship. When that ends, I’m done.” I love to laugh and clown around. I’m the joker of poker. The poker table is a great place to have fun with your family and good friends. I have the pleasure of playing cards with my closest friends and family members, and that’s a good thing. I’ve also had the pleasure of playing with some great Duck Dynasty fans and army buddies. We’re only there to have a good time.
Now that we’re all on the same page, let’s get started on what I like to call the basics of Texas Hold’em.
Strategy: There are several things you have to consider before the game even begins: your strategy, dos and don’ts, knowing your opponent, seating position, dealing with maniacs, loosening up tight players, setting goals, and, most important, making sure you have enough unsweetened tea on hand in case the game turns into a marathon.
Ask yourself this: What’s my strategy going to be? We don’t walk out to the duck blind and just start shooting (well, unless my nephew Willie is with us). There is a lot of preparation that takes place in advance. The duck hole needs to be scouted, blinds have to be built and covered with brush, decoys have to be placed on the water just right, weather forecasts and wind direction have to be analyzed, weapons have to be cleaned and readied, food has to be made, and we have to figure out how we’re going to get to the blind and leave safely. Hey, it takes a lot of work to go duck hunting with the Robertsons.
It’s the same way with playing Texas Hold’em. You have to know what your plan is going to be going in. If you’re playing to enjoy yourself and just pass the time, then stick to your plan. Play as long as you want and then call it a night. If you’re playing to win, you need to remember these critical points. The best coaches in football and other sports often win before the games are even played. They do their homework, scout their opponents, and develop their strategies before the ball is even kicked off. It’s the same way in poker.
Another thing to remember is that you can’t focus on only one player. If you’re not paying attention to everyone at the table, you might get side swiped by friendly fire. If you’ve ever been in a duck blind with Willie, you’d know exactly what I’m talking about. You have to have your head on a swivel when you’re shooting ducks with Willie, Jack! You never know when a few pellets might buzz your ears.
Pay attention to everyone at the table and know exactly how many chips they have in their stacks. Don’t go on the tilt and lose your strategy. I’ve watched plenty of good players play tight all night, but then lose their entire stack in only a couple of hands because they went on the tilt. You have to have a little common sense and play with self-control. Whatever you do, don’t get involved in too many pots and, most important, learn to fold. This is a difficulty strategy to learn—even for me. Remember that the most underrated play is folding.
Scouting: I know the guys I play poker with: Bull, Fox, Chicken, Nerds, McMillan, Jase, Willie, Jep, Martin, Terry Mac, Frank, The Counselor, John Carter, and many more. When I say I know these guys, I mean I know them. I know how they like to play. I know who is a poker bully and who is full of bull. I know their tendencies and patterns. I know some of them are capable of playing good poker, while some of them don’t know the difference between a good hand and a bad hand. Some of them even like to try to win with tricks and nonsense.
I do know this: What is known is manageable. Once I know a person’s tendencies and strategy, I can make my own deductions and conclusions. You might be surprised to know that I’m not exactly playing the person but their hand. It usually works out pretty well for me. When I decide that I have a read on an opponent’s hand, I’ll go with the read. If you can’t stick with your initial read and listen to what your gut is saying, then you don’t need to play. It’s a tough strategy to live by, but it’s worthwhile.
Seating position: When we go duck hunting, it seems like my brother Phil and Jase always have the best seating positions in the blind, which are on opposite ends. Nobody shoots a duck until one of them says, “Cut ’em.” Since they’re going to see the ducks first and decide when everyone else gets to shoot, they usually have the best shots at the ducks. Everyone else gets the leftovers. It’s like when we were kids sitting at the dinner table. The adults ate first and then the kids ate whatever was left, which usually wasn’t much.
In Texas Hold’em poker, you pretty much get to decide where you sit, unless you decide ahead of time that everyone is going to draw for a seat. The most important thing you want to remember about seating is that you never want to sit next to a maniac. A maniac is someone who doesn’t have a strategy. If you have a maniac in your poker game, make sure you sit to his left. You don’t want to sit to his right because then he’ll be making decisions on his hand after you act. It can mess up the entire game.
Over the years, I’ve learned that the only way to beat a maniac is to slow-play my big hands and then let him bluff his chips away. Remember: the trapper thinks two steps ahead of his victim. It’s like a big chip explosion when it happens. Boom! There goes his stack of chips, exploding like my old gray truck and landing in my stack. You can’t buy that kind of entertainment anywhere. That’s what I’m talking about, Jack!
Now, on the other hand, when you have a tight player that you’re trying to beat, you have to be a little tricky. You have to show a lot of bluffs and overbet the pot at times, especially when you have the solid gold nuts in your hand. Sometimes, you’ll get caught and they’ll sniff you out, which Jase is pretty adept at doing with me. I’m telling you: that boy could smell a skunk from nine miles away! He always seems to know when I have him beat. Tight players are sometimes difficult to beat. Sometimes, I can persuade a tight player to call his hand by acting weak. I’m not an actor but I can tell a good story. That’s another important lesson: Tell your story with enthusiasm! Don’t forget that, boys.
Holding it together: When I watch professional poker players on TV, the good ones seem to play with one common attribute—consistency. Poker is the only sport in which professionals and amateurs often play together, and in most cases the pros might not be overwhelming favorites. In the end, it always depends on the cards. On some nights, you’ll catch good hands; some nights you won’t. The most important thing is to remember to hold it together. Play with patience and have fun. Try to enjoy the game, whether you’re winning or not.
Taunting: Just like when I’m playing rook, chess, dominoes, spades, or Scrabble, playing poker with me can be brutal. If you’re thin-skinned and get your feelings hurt easily, like Willie, poker might not be the right game for you. Warning: turn back now! I will still respect you, but I don’t want to see you cry. I like to talk it up a little bit every now and then to make my opponents think there’s more at stake than there actually is.
I learned this skill at a young age. In our regular card games when I was a kid, we liked to say that our game was the “shark tank.” The brim bed and the kiddie games were being played down the street. It was really only plain fun, but when the Robertson family plays cards or dominoes, it’s like we’re in it for blood. It isn’t for the faint of heart, that’s for sure.
Before I started playing with my buddies, the games usually involved only family members and our closest friends. We love to beat each other and then rub it in. If Jase plays a bad hand, I’m going to tell him about it. I’m not worried about hurting his feelings. If Jase screws up a hand, I’m going to go step by step on how he messed up, and everyone else at the table is going to dissect his errors too. It’s the way we play.
Hey, I’ve had Willie so mad at the table that he has actually left the game crying. Well, at least that’s how I remember it. He would probably say different. Do you know the difference between Willie and an old hound dog? After a while, the dog eventually quits whining.
Jase is as slippery as a fish in shallow water when he’s playing poker. He seems to win a lot because he plays super tight. Jase is so tight with his money that he’ll only invite me to dinner when he has a two-for-one coupon. When it’s time to pay, he makes me pay the entire bill! Phil’s youngest son, Jep, hates to lose, especially to his older brothers, Jase and Willie. Jep plays pretty good poker. Jep’s wife, Jessica, and Korie also play good poker.
Justin Martin, who works with me in the reed room at Duck Commander, plays poker with us every once in a while. He likes to call our game “plinko,” whatever that means. One night, Martin wanted to quit because he was taking so many bad beats. Willie told him to buy back into the game or he was going to dock his pay. Now, that’s funny!
A few members of the Robertson clan are good poker players, but I think I have the edge on all of them. It could be that icy stare that you might have heard about. Or it could be that I don’t believe them most of the time, especially Willie, who is the classic bluffer. Willie is not going to bluff me. He knows it and I know it. One day, Willie is going to learn that I’m a mind reader when it comes to his brain. Fortunately, there isn’t much inside his head to figure out!
Bluffing: The best qualifying hands in Texas Hold’em are obviously pocket aces, kings, queens, jacks, and so forth. Other hands to consider are ace-king, ace-queen, ace-jack, especially if they’re of the same suit. Now, some people are going to tell you that you should only play these premium hands before the flop. I’m here to tell you that you need more than that in your arsenal. You have to be willing to play less than premium hands and learn to run “without the ball.”
Believe it or not, there’s a science behind it. The Good Lord blessed me with the art of storytelling and it certainly comes in handy at a poker table. The correct terminology is bluffing. If you tell a good story, there’s a good chance others will believe it, regardless of how far-fetched it might seem. Learn to tell a believable story when you’re bluffing. You have to be willing to push your chips with a real hand or a bluffing hand with equal enthusiasm.
Ride the wave: For some players, being lucky is an art. For whatever reason, I’ve always been lucky. I’m talking ’bout, hey, a penny on the head, inside a horseshoe, on top of a four-leaf clover, and rolled up with a leprechaun kind of lucky. Four-leafed clovers don’t find themselves. You gotta get down and look for ’em.
There have been many times when I’ve busted an entire table with nothing in my hand. It isn’t necessarily because I’m such a good player. I have the uncanny ability to recognize when things are going my way. I like to ride the wave when it’s rolling. My friends call it the Si-Cycle, and it’s a ride that demands respect. When I’m on a heater, it seems like I can catch the exact cards needed to win. While it might sound a little absurd, it’s actually reality. My advice to you is to ride the wave when it’s rolling!
Profiling: Pay close attention to this: you have to decide what kind of player you want to be. I’m the type of person who plays the hand. You might be the type of person who plays the odds and pulls out a slide ruler every time someone checks or raises you. That’s fine. I’m only saying that I’m more of a “feel” kind of player. I can play with a person and figure out his patterns pretty easily. Some people have a tendency to do the same things over and over, depending on whether they have a good hand or a bad one. In most cases, they probably don’t even know they’re doing it.
One of the guys who plays poker with us pretty regularly is a man we call Nerds. Now, Nerds is a pretty good player. But he used to have what’s called a “tell.” He unknowingly rubbed his eyes when he had a big hand. Every time Nerds got into a big pot and rubbed his eyes, I immediately folded. Hey, the other guys at the table never noticed him rubbing his eyes, so they would play with him and call him down to the river. Unknowingly, they’d lose a stack of chips every time against his big hand.
It might be because I grew up in the woods, but I pay close attention to my surroundings and environment. In the game of poker, you have to pay close attention to your opponents. You have to notice what they’re doing and look for tells. By the way, after Nerds noticed me folding on every one of his big hands, he stopped rubbing his eyes. But what he doesn’t know is that he started rubbing his ears. I’m certainly not going to tell him!
The Big Coon hunts late: Over the years, I’ve acquired quite a few nicknames at the poker table: The Si-Cycle, Any Two Magoo, Ain’t Enough Nut, One-Pot Wonder, The Go-Bust Specialist, See-Saw Si, The Calling Station, The Magician (with the vanishing stack), and The Donkey Whisperer, among others.
What you need to know more than anything else is that I’m always in control. I’m a lot like the legendary poker player Gus Hansen—you never know what you’re going to get when I sit down at the table. I like it that way. Changing my game and strategy is my secret to success. Just when my opponents think they have me pegged—boom!—I change it up and bust the table. I don’t mind the funny names they call me, as long as they keep handing over their chips. You can’t defend something you don’t understand and can’t predict. I’m like a flash of lightning. You never really know where it came from until it’s too late.
One thing my opponents have learned over the years: the later the night gets in a poker game, the more lethal I become. That’s when I start plotting my attack without mercy. Once that happens, it’s time for the big coon to eat. Booya!