All you “Star Trek" fans out there are in luck this week because it just so happens I ran into my own Kobayashi Maru during a recent poker game.

But before I get into it I should probably explain for the terribly un-cool non-Trekies among us what this whole “Kobayashi Maru” thing is. What it does in “Star Trek” (in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” to be precise) is it tests a Starfleet cadet’s ability to deal with unwinnable situations – things like, say, getting attacked by a boatload of pissed-off Klingons. Does our cadet fold up like a cheap tent, maybe taking the whole starship with him, or does he invent a solution on the spot through a little imagination and produce a plausible move?

Spock and Kirk aced theirs, and as fate would have it, I got my chance too. I’m not sure if “ace” was my exact score, but I done my best. You be the judge:

The game in question was no-limit Hold’em, $2/$5 blinds. It was about 5 a.m. and the game was down to five-handed. The next player to quit was probably going to break it up, and I was a prime candidate for kill man because I was the deep stack at the table and seldom play that late.

Anyway, I was in the cutoff seat, and I straddled for $10. The button made it $40, and both blinds and another player called. I looked down at a 3-4 suited. What was I supposed to do, throw away a juicy draw like that with four customers trying to pay me off in my straddle pot?

Not on your life.

I got in there with them, and the flop came A-Q-J, all rainbows. Everybody checked. The turn was a deuce. I now had a monster wraparound draw, but I decided to slow-play it. Everybody checked again.

The river was a 5, making me the second nuts. They checked around to me, and I now checked out of strength to Billy “The Penguin,” who’s not only the biggest maniac in Kentucky but as luck would have it was sitting button. I was hoping he was either slow-playing something himself or would take a stab. I got my wish. He way over-bet the pot, betting $500 at the $200. Everybody folded to me.

It was an outrageous situation and I deliberated forever over it. He probably had flopped very strong and slow-played, but then again, I figured it could also be a pure steal. I’m here to tell you there was no reasonable course of action at that point. Nor was I even close to coming to a decision. I’ll go to my grave saying there was no sound course of action. With him being a maniac and way over-betting in last position after everybody else had showed nothing but weakness; with me having one foot out the door and him knowing that; and with only one hand that could beat me – would he have checked it twice if he had it…? I couldn’t even begin to get traction in my thinking. Sports fans, I was stumped.

There simply seemed no way to make a good decision, which translates directly, in a theoretical sense, to “there was no winning move.” A Kobayashi Maru moment. Finally, a player I had never played with asked for the clock. Honestly, I can’t blame him. He didn’t know I never waste time, and this had been going on way too long – maybe four minutes by then.

As the dealer counted the clock down, I started racking my chips up. Of course, this was hardly a giveaway because I’d done that before then pushed in a rack to call. This time, though, I said, “Cash me out,” and threw my hand face-up towards the muck. Since I was now technically a railbird – and since, as everybody knows, railbirds are derelicts that are subject to do anything – I grabbed The Penguin’s hand and looked at it. I did it slow, mind you, in case any heat came out – in which case I was prepared to abort my “solution.” But I had a feeling Billy would allow me a little peek. After all, we’d all been saying for an hour that whoever quit next we were all quitting – so the game was technically over. Did the rules even still apply?

Everybody just kept staring at me as if I were about to shoot Bambi’s mother, and now, having not been dissuaded, I was looking straight at The Penguin’s K-10 of hearts – the nuts; I had saved a rack!

“Excellent bluff,” I said as I stood up. “You outplayed me on that one.”

Billy just smiled like a peacock. What with a noted poker theorist like me praising his play to the fellers, what’s a little sneak peek at his hole cards?

… So it seemed to me there was absolutely no reasonable way to act on the hand – the only time I’ve ever been in that spot. Calling, folding, and raising all seemed equally absurd. I just wanted to know what The Penguin had so that’s what I done. Didn’t exactly save a starship or anything, but it did seem an impossible scenario – so I bent the rules a little to wriggle out of it.

Just like Spock and Kirk, when the fateful moment arrived I found my own way out. Yes, I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: You’re gonna have to get up way before (or at least stay up later than) 5 a.m. to fool ‘ole Cinch. I’d passed my own Kobayashi Maru with flying colors. And the best part was, although I ended up congratulating Billy on his great bluff, I – and everyone else at the table for that matter – knew I’d made the best play of the night.

I’m not sure what it takes to get in the Poker Hall of Fame, but I’m pulling out all my stops to qualify. You’ve got your legends and you’ve got your legends-in-their-own-minds. Won’t somebody please explain why I don’t belong in the first of those two categories?


By: Dave Cinch
dave.cinch@acehoyle.com

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