I WANT TO WRITE MORE ABOUT my newfound interest in playing Texas Hold ’em poker. It’s an intimidating and uncomfortable topic in one respect. I’m a newbie writing about a popular strategy game to an audience that I’m sure contains many expert poker players who could take me to the cleaners without much effort.

Of course, I’ve played kitchen-table poker with matches or chips from time to time since childhood. Most of us have. That, however, is the end of my experience with the game. I’ve only played in-house for money using nickels, dimes, and quarters fewer than a handful of times.

Allow me to drum a different spin on it. I’ll start with the players one might find sitting next to them at the casino poker tables. I’ve not yet sat at a casino poker table, but I’ll describe them anyhow, because I’ve seen them in action at other games.

After thoroughly studying blackjack strategy, I began to notice that most players didn’t have a clue how to manage their cards or their money. I’d sit and play tight dollar chips next to people loosely playing $5, $25, and $100 chips. People with a $100 stake would put out $20 in one hand and split 10s against an Ace, or sit on 12 with 10 showing. I wanted to scream. I wanted to throttle them. I wanted to say, “Geez, buddy, take one damn chip and go buy yourself a basic strategy book. They’re two bucks in the gift shop.”

Many players throw down excessive portions of their bankroll on one turn of the cards. They bankrupt themselves during bad runs. They don’t get that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. The books recommend 20 betting units per session; bet bigger units when winning, smaller units when losing, but stay with 20. I watch people sit at a $5 table and cash in $40 for eight chips. Then they’ll play $10 a hand. After losing two hands in a row, they’ll throw out the last $20. Then it’s back to the wallet or back to the room.

I see the same thing at the craps table, only worse: people playing with a thousand dollars making the worst bets imaginable. It tears me up inside. They don’t know how to play, but they sure know the lingo. “Twenty dollar Yo!” “Ten on the Horn.” “My kid’s college fund on Any Seven.”

I want to say, “Hey, Captain Lingo, take your odds bet! Take your odds bet! For crying out loud, take the freaking odds!” Eh. It’s their money. They help keep the lights on for the rest of us.

Now, at last, after much prefacing, we come to our topic: Texas Hold ’em poker and why I want to start playing it in the casinos.

All these people who game ungainfully are also making their way to the poker rooms. Instead of feeling sorry for them or wanting to throttle them, I will become overjoyed to see them and want to kiss them repeatedly on the forehead. Instead of throwing their money at the casinos, they may begin throwing it at me.

I doubt I’ll ever join the tournament circuit. I don’t think I can become that good, that brave, or that rich. However, I do intend to haunt a few touristy card rooms in retirement. I’m not presuming the tables are rounded with fools. I’m sure to meet many expert, professional players. They will prey on my weakness, and I will prey on those weaker than I.

Some starter points: The number-one reason good players lose at blackjack is that they over bet. The exact same is true about Texas Hold ’em.

Most players know card values and likelihoods and play strategy, yet they stay in and bet with weak cards. It’s real hard to not do this. People don’t want to fold. They want to play cards, by golly. I love those people.

Anyone can get lucky. I’ve had A, A and lost to a 2, 7. On the Zynga Poker app that I use, they show player history. Some have played 40,000 hands of cards, yet when they’re flipped over at the round’s end, some of these veterans went down the river with a 3 and an 8. “Go to the gift shop and buy a book, for Pete’s sake.”

My books tell me there are 169 different starting pairs in Texas Hold ’em. Experienced players in early betting position generally limit themselves to the top five hands: AA, KK, QQ, AK suited, and JJ. They will fold with suited AQ on down. Imagine that. A full 94 percent of all possible hands go into the trash pile when you bet first. I’m hoping that info is esoteric.

In middle and late betting positions, a good player will stay in the game all the way down to the top 60 or 100 hands. For pairs, FYI, the weakest is 3, 3 in 52nd place, 2, 2 in 51st place, and 4, 4 in 50th. In 100th place is off-suit 10, 8. In 169th place is off-suit 7, 2 — the worst hand.

So my first lesson wasn’t to play poker, but to memorize starting pair rankings. I write and recite, over and over, page after page. That’s how I learned card counting. I’m focusing on the top and bottom 20 hands, and familiarizing myself with the top 100.

Then comes step two.

Steve Gibbs teaches at Benicia High School and has written a column for The Herald since 1985.