Victoria Coren Describes Deauville Hand

10 Feb 2010

Amonget the many poker stars playing at the European Poker Tour leg that took place in Deauville in France was Victoria Coren, the professional poker player, writer and journalist. Writing in the Guardian newspaper she described a very interesting hand that she played during the event.

Coren started by described how at poker, as no doubt in many things in like, it was essential that you continued to learn new things as the years passed by. She said that fashions in betting were changeable things and indicated that two poker players, Gus Hansen and Vanessa Rousso who she described as two of the best players in the world, had stated that over the last year they had modified considerably their poker strategies.

She also pointed out that every hand is different, and each one presents its unique set of challenges and opportunities. To illustrate this she described how a hand that she played at Deauville had placed her in a situation that was completely new to her.


The hand happened late in the event when only ten players remained with two five handed games underway on two tables. Victoria’s chip stack was a little depleted; she was down to only thirteen big blinds left.

In this hand she held A-S; K-S. The player to the left of the big blind bet two and a half big blinds but there had been a complication during the deal. Accidentally the A-H had been exposed, and the rules called for that card to be removed from the deck; rather a silly rule in fact.

As Coren pointed out, having one less ace in the deck would have a significant impact on the poker statistics. For instance, the chances that the opener had a worse Ace than Coren’s were reduced, so the chances that he had opened on a pair were increased. That means that by reducing the chances that she would make a pair of aces reduced the chances of her making a higher pair than the opener were reduced by 10%.

She bet all in, but her suspicions proved correct. The opener had pocket jacks and Coren was eliminated. “Did she do the right thing?” she asks. We think she should have folded.