“See you later, Sucker Snarky Mark,” said Robert, as I got up from the table, “You went all-in on a flush draw? Those only win 20% of the time. Why don’t you re-enter? We need more players like you in the game. Come on back. Donations are welcome.”
Sinister Smiling Ray smiled in his usual manner from the seat to my right, as nothing pleased him more that my poker demise. So, just how much of a sucker was Snarky Mark? The answer is, “Not as much as I want y’all to think I am.”
Let me explain as only a sucker can. I had an Ace-Queen suited from the small blind. The blinds were 100-200. Potter raised it pre-flop to 600. I called with the AQ suited in spades. The large blind also called.
The flop came 10 high with 2 spades. I was first to act, so I bet 2,000. I started the hand at about 8,700. The large blind went all-in for around 6,500. Then Potter moved all-in for about 12,000. We all started with 10,000 at the beginning of the tournament. I decided to move all-in as well. When we turned the cards up, I showed my 4-flush. The large blind had A-10 of clubs for top pair and a back door club draw. Potter showed pocket Queens. I missed my flush draw, Sinister Smiling Ray chuckled, Robert criticized, and the dealer, Alex, called out way louder than she needed to, “Two seats open.”
So, let’s review the play of moving all in with a flush draw on the flop. Robert said those only hit 20% of the time. There was a 11 out of 48 chance that the next card would be a spade. So, the odds of the next card being a spade was almost 23%, but there were two cards to come with both the turn and river on the way. So, with everything added together, I had about a 35% chance of hitting my hand. Sure, I am going to be eliminated 65% of the time, but if I would have won, I would have tripled my stack. I believe there is positive equity with that kind of chance, as opposed to carefully nursing a stack, only to get eliminated 3 hours later a few places out of the money.
Chris Ferguson won the main event of the WSOP in 2000. I had read that he would take some crazy draws down the stretch of tournaments as they were working their way to the money. If he lost, he went home. If he won, he had a huge chip lead. I played against him in 2005 at the $1,500 Limit 7-card Stud Event at the World Series of Poker. I was trying to to survive my way into day 2. I had been on a 2 year losing streak. My last cash had been 2 years before at the WSOP in Pot-Limit Hold’em when I won $17,500. So that money was gone, plus so much more. I watched Chris Ferguson blow his stack on a huge draw that was both a flush draw and a straight draw. He had a good size stack, and went out 31st. I think if he would have hit that draw, he might have won that event. There were 472 entries and they paid 40 places according to Global Poker Index. So how did Sucker Snarky Mark play when there were 41 players remaining? I walked to the bathroom and took a dump, because I knew I could survive the antes until someone got eliminated on the bubble, so instead of having the s#!& scared out of me at the table, I s#!& my way into the money. I ended up finishing in 3rd place for a win of $63,180.
Okay, back to 2026. I got knocked out a 3pm of a 1pm tournament, and I don’t regret it. What did I do when I left the casino? I ate Rocknroll Sushi. Then, I went home and check-raised my landlord. Let me explain. There’s wisdom in the game of poker. Skills that come in handy at the poker table have applications in real life.
So for the unindoctrinated, let me explain what a check-raise is. It’s a powerful weapon. When it’s your turn to act and you’re first to act, you can check, which means no bet, or you can make a bet. However, there’s a more deceptive approach. You can check, and wait for someone else to bet. Then you can hit them back with a raise. It’s a trap when another player thinks your hand is weak. For some it’s hidden power. For others, it’s a bluff. It can also work in real life too. I’ve check raised myself out of marriages, galpals, and poker tournaments.
What I am saying is that it’s all about gamesmanship. You can apply that gamesmanship learned at the poker table to real life circumstances, but you need to be careful, because the consequences are real. So ,my landlord in Pensacola advised that he is likely to sell the house I’m renting, and would not renew my lease, preferring to keep it a month to month arrangement. Faced with the possibility of being compelled to vacate the premises, I started looking for property to either rent or purchase in Las Vegas. That’s not a bluff. I am seriously looking, My sister, Lisa, and her family are in Orange County, California. She is encouraging me to relocate to Vegas, which right on the highway 4 or 5 hours away from her. I informed my landlord, who I really like, that I will be moving to Las Vegas in the fall. He asked me to give him til August to see if he’s actually going to sell the place. I like it here, but I need to know I’m not going to be involuntarily displaced. So, I feel like I improved my situation.
But let’s not forget about the missus in Mississippi. If you’re just tuning in to the tragic comedy that is Mark Burtman, you may not know that I was preparing to fly out of Memphis to Las Vegas for the WSOP the day after Memorial Day in 2025. A sheriff deputy followed me up my driveway all the way to the wife’s trailer in Iuka Mississippi when I returned from bowling. He gave me a summons to appear in court 3 days later. The complaint asserted that I had dementia and couldn’t manage my affairs, and my future ex-wife wanted me declared incompetent, because I was about to inherit $100,000, and she claimed I was going to blow it at the World Series of Poker. She wanted a court order that would allow her to get that money. So, I immediately packed my bags and escaped Mississippi. I had to hire an attorney I knew and pay him $2,500, while I was playing a WSOP poker tournament in Las Vegas. The entry fee was only $1,500, so she cost me more that my entry. It’s interesting I knew the docket number from memory, despite my dementia.
I did finish 57th out of 377 entries in the $1,500 Limit 7-card Stud event, which was in the money, paying $3041. Not bad for a guy with dementia, right. So what did I do when I got back to Iuka, Mississippi. I packed my bags, my computer, and personal items, and moved to Pensacola, Florida. It was a well executed check-raise. I helped my cousin recover from a kidney transplant August, 2025. At one point, he needed to take 28 pills a day, and I memorized and organized his medications into a pill-minder keeping track of his immunosuppressants like tacrolimus and mycophenolate. Good thing I didn’t have dementia, or I would have killed him. As I watched over him, I wrote the book, The Trained Ghost Gimmick. Let me just say check-raises save lives.