Practicing Scared Pharmacy

Dear poker degenerates,

About a month ago, I was playing 1-2 No Limit Hold Em at Winstar, a casino just a few miles north of the Texas-Oklahoma border. The Winstar poker room happens to be one of the few redeeming things about the Okie state*. The deck was hitting me in the mouth that night, meaning I was catching everything. On one hand, I flopped a boat, sixes over jacks, when my opponent flopped trips (6-6 vs J-9, flop J-J-6), and I proceeded to take the guy’s money. On another, I flopped top two-pair and made a really stupid all-in move out of turn, raising an additional $160 on a $100 bet ($260 total). Fortunately, the guy behind me folded a flopped straight because he respected my tight-aggressive play, and the initial raiser didn’t hit his draw. That sent the folder on tilt, and he berated me with stuff like, ‘I really hand it to you…not many people would have had the guts (sarcasm for ‘stupidity’) to raise all-in with two-pair.’

Then a few hands later, I completed a nut straight draw (Broadway) against the tilter’s flopped set and took the rest of his stack, sending him out the casino door. I had started the night losing my initial $200 buy-in, but scrambled up to $560 with my last bill. But with the cards I had that night, a better player would have made so much more. I was playing scared poker, and it cost me additional winnings.

This was the microcosm hand for the night: I was dealt J-9s on the button with two horrible players sitting to my left in the blinds. The first guy played loose-aggressive slop poker, pretty much continuation betting with any 2 cards after the flop. He bet and folded out of turn, insulted the dealers, and even folded a few hands when he could have checked his cards. The guy to his left was pretty much an open book: he bet his made hands, called his draws, and folded his mess. Easy pickings: I raised to $7 pretty much every time I had the button, and this time I had my favorite hand.

They both call as I lick my chops. The flop comes, and it takes all my power not to drool all over the cards: Q-10-8 rainbow. I flopped the nuts with my J-9, which is the best 5-card hand given the cards on the table. My brother calls it the hon bi, which is literally translated from Vietnamese as ‘the marbles’. They both check, and I make a sizeable value bet, about three-fourths of the pot, hoping that one of them would call. They both do, which made me a little anxious. I put the loose guy on a draw, and the tight guy on top pair, overpair, or a set. A 5 came on the turn. They check, I bet more this time, and they both call again. Now I’m thinking that one of them likely had a set on the flop. The river came. Another 5, a scare card for me. Again they check in front of me. Amateurs love to slowplay. They love to reveal the winning hand and rub it in your face. And I had a belief that at least one of them had turned his set into a boat with the river 5, and this was enough to make me check behind them.

I turn over my flopped straight, and they both muck their hands. Though I don’t know what they truly had, I’d probably say the loose guy had a busted draw (K-J) and was paying me off, and the tight guy had top pair, top kicker (A-Q). And somehow I didn’t make more money after flopping the nut straight. While I was replaying the hand in my head, reviewing all the action, the guy on my right, a solid 19-year old Asian (it’s an Indian casino with a lower gambling age) with a diamond stud in his left ear, needled me with, ‘Dude, why didn’t you bet the river? You had it!’

‘The 5 was a scare card. I thought at least one of them made a full house.’

He considers, agrees silently to himself, and then tries to set me on tilt, ‘So what? Are you playing scared poker?’

I shrugged and smiled. I was winning, and I didn’t care. Looking back, I realize that I had given them odds (at least one of them) to draw out on me. And the odds of them having the boat were slim since they both would have raised (or check-raised) me if they had flopped a set.

Scared poker is my current M.O., and I'm working hard to change that. To triple barrel your nothing against an opponent's something; that is mostly genius and sometimes gross stupidity.
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Poker is simpler than life in that poker boils down to the chips in front of you. A correct decision nets more chips. A correct decision could also mean less lost chips, which is equally as important. Like life, it is a game of incomplete information; we have to make decisions based on what we know, however little that is. And if we consistently make good decisions, we will make more money in the long run. It is a game which rewards good play and punishes bad play. Therefore, it is a just game. People who complain about bad beats and others' poor play are just not applying themselves.

But life is far more difficult than poker, which is itself an extremely complex game. And it is fraught with injustice: how is playing professional sports worth 100x more than teaching kids how to read and write. Or how is rapping/singing about degrading acts which are performed with semen rewarded better than doing research which paves the way for the cure for HIV/AIDS?

And to set ‘justice’ even more off kilter, we have allowed frivolous lawsuits to dictate our lifestyles. It’s common sense that your coffee should be hot; do you need a warning saying that it could cause you injury if spilled?

What affect me personally are all these inane commercials with ambulance chasers asking people if they’ve suffered injury from medicines. If people read the warnings, there really shouldn’t be anything to complain about: there are risks inherent with any medicine. If Accutane(R) can cause DEATH (suicidal ideation), why are people suing about upset stomachs and diarrhea? As such, there is tremendous risk of not covering your backside as a healthcare professional.

And for myself at least, there is little upside to exposing yourself to liability. In the past 10 years or so, there was some study done in some pediatric journal which purported that common over-the-counter remedies were useless for kids under 6 years. Since then, most manufacturers have removed the dosing for kids under 6. Some pediatricians will swear at you up and down for recommending those medicines while other peds docs will call you an idiot for refusing to recommend them. PharmDs are technically doctors and self-proclaimed ‘medication experts’, and so I guess we do have authority to supersede drug manufacturer labeling. But it's not like I get paid any extra when I make a recommendation which might expose me to a lawsuit if something bad happens.

I know if I recommend common OTC remedies for kids outside of the packaging recommendations (which is ill-advised), most kids will probably end up fine. Their parents will have the placebo effect of giving their kids something to help with the sniffles even though those medicines may not have any effect at all (so the study says) and has absolutely no effect on the curing the true sickness. But heaven forbid if one of those kids decompensates and croaks. Then the parents, their lawyers, and the late local news will be on my ass for recommending the damn drug.

‘We have here ‘doctor’ Nguyen who had recommended a medicine which specifically said not to be used in children under 6. ‘Doctor’ Nguyen, what do you have to say for yourself now that this innocent child is irreparably injured?’

‘You are all absolute idiots. Thank you malpractice insurance for covering my behind. You asked for my professional opinion, and I gave it, and now you're suing me for it. Next time, go Google it, and then sue yourselves.’

No thanks! What do I say on a daily basis? ‘There is nothing labeled for kids under 6 (or 4 or 2 years, depending on the medicine). You can ask your physician about it, and if they recommend it, then I can show you where it is. But I cannot recommend anything outside the package recommendation as I could lose my license.’ If you’re not comfortable doing something, say that you could lose your license--that works pretty well.

One of my friends says that I’m being a coward, that he’d rather help 100 people in need while exposing himself to potential liability, than intentionally being unhelpful like myself. And that’s fine. To each his/her own. I personally like having a license. And it’s far less likely that I’d be sued for refusing to recommend something than for recommending something off-label.
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In real poker played in casinos, you can only bet and lose what is in front of you. If some guy bets $1,000, and you only have $200 on the table, then you can go all-in to win the $200 part of his $1,000 bet. You don't have to fold or throw in your car keys as they do in the TV shows and movies. In the case of my flopped straight, it would have been the right move (in hindsight) to go all-in as those players had a history of calling with second best hands. In the unlikely case that one of them had the full house, I would have only lost a couple hundred.

In life you can lose so much more, your entire livelihood depending on the lawyer who's suing you. My friend can go ahead and bet all-in with his weak straight. Eventually, one of his opponents will have made a boat and take away all his money, the clothes off his back, and the food from his kids' mouths.

Me? I got bills to pay, and so I practice scared pharmacy.

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*Why is it that neighbors are so mean to each other or are deemed ‘rivals’? Is proximity like when your bro/sis invade your personal space while in the backseat on long roadtrips?