If the odds are a million to one against something happening, chances are 50-50 it will. -Yogi Berra.

[This is a work of poker fiction set ten thousand hands in the future. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.]

Every poker movie has to end with an odds-defying showdown. In Rounders Mike McDermott holds 8s-9s and flops a 6d-7s-10h straight, defeating Teddy KGB ("It hurts, doesn't it? Your hopes dashed, your dreams down the toilet") at odds of 76-to-1. In The Cincinnati Kid Eric Stoner shows down Ac-As-Ah-Tc-Ts only to be defeated by Lancey Howard's 7a-8a-9h-10h-Jh straight flush ("You're good, kid, but as long as I'm around, you're only second best.") at odds of 72,192-to-1. Most recently, in Dude, Where's My Cards? Timmy Tilt holds Ac-Tc, flops a 649,470-to-1 Jc-Qc-Kc royal flush, and then proceeds to push all his chips, plus his Ac-Tc, over the bet line. "Dude," he asks the dealer seconds later, "where's my cards?"

While Matt Damon's "Mike McDermott," and Steve McQueen's "Eric Stoner," never had to hold real cards and face real odds, the same was about to be no longer true for Joey Scroggs' "Timmy Tilt." As part of a publicity stunt for the upcoming sequel, Dude, Where's My Chips? the producers had bought a seat for their star "Timmy" at the World's Most Serious Poker Tournament, without ever asking their actor Joey, if he could play poker. He could not.

Desperate to avert a career-ending disaster, Scroggs turned to hack poker writer Davy "The Big Deal" Zelanski, who claimed to be able to turn beginners into winners. For an unknown amount of money, Zelanski agreed to keep their arrangement a secret, assuring Scroggs, "We're all-in this together."

In David Sklansky's seminal work Theory Of Poker, there is a no-limit hold 'em tournament strategy for complete beginners that requires them to go all-in if an opponent has raised before the flop and you have a pair of aces, a pair of kings, or ace-king. This is called "The System."

In Davy Zelanski's shoddy rip-off, Theoretical Poker, there is a copycat no-limit hold 'em tournament strategy for complete beginners that requires them to go all-in pre-flop, in or out of position, raise or no raise, with aces, kings, queens, jacks, aces/faces, and pairs. This is called "The Method."

"The Method's brilliance," writes Zelanski, "is that by pushing all-in every time you hold one of these hands is that no matter what cards you hold, and no matter what cards your opponents hold, there can be only one of two outcomes-you will either win or lose-making your odds exactly 50-50. Your all-in bet forces your opponents to calculate pot odds and out cards, while you sit back and await the outcome of a coin flip. It's no big deal to double up. $10,000 starting tournament chips in a field of 1,000 players becomes $10,000,000 winning tournament chips by doubling up only 10 times!"

Reviewers heaped scorn and abuse on Zelanski's "Method." PokerPlaying labeled it "The Formula for Failure." Card Games called it "No-Limit Stupidity." While people who understood the game of poker laughed their heads off at "The Method," no one was laughing when, doubling up 9 times, "Tommy Tilt" made it to the Worlds Most Serous Poker Tournament's Final Table.

Davy 'The Big Deal" Zelanski never lived to see the success of The Method. On the theory that two could keep a secret so long as one of them was dead, Scroggs murdered Zelanski. "It was," he would one day confess, "no big deal."

(To be continued in the next issue of Poker Player)