The Night the Horseshoe Fell Out

As I promised last time, this is a story from my summer Vegas trip.  In fact, it is sort of a sequel to the post here. Wow, that post is two months old already.  It is indeed taking me awhile to get through this.  Anyway, that post was about the first night I played poker with Lightning during his weeklong Vegas visit.  Well, this is the story of his last night in town.

As reported in that post, Lightning had started off his trip hot. Recall that after I saw him win his first pot, I tweeted out that he had had a horseshoe implanted up his ass.  He pretty much continued the run good throughout his trip and was playing his final session at Bally's with our pal VegasDWP. So of course I joined them.

Me?  I had been running the opposite of good for about two weeks, in other words, since I had arrived in Vegas.  And it continued this night.  At one point, after entering the pot preflop and missing it for about the millionth time, I announced to the table as I folded, "You'll know that I connected with a flop when I faint."  Well, the dealer thought it was funny at least.

The three of us were able to sit at the same table immediately and in fact, all right next to each other.  I had position on both, but it didn't help because I was unable to get dealt a decent starting hand, and when I did find something to play, I totally struck out on the flop as I've already indicated. But with the three of us all playing together there was a lot of great conversation and plenty of jocularity.  So at least I was having fun losing my money.

Lightning seemed to be doing well, having built up his stack nicely.  Sorry, I don't recall how DWP was doing.  Lightning managed to win a nice sized pot with 9-3 soooted by catching a flush on the river.  I said to him, "9-3???"  I mean, I honestly thought he was a better player than that, I never would have expected to play a trash hand like that.  But he won, so what do I know?  Maybe I should insta-fold pocket Kings from now on and insta-shove 9-3 sooted?

Well, I had slowly but surely worked my stack down to less than $100 when I finally got one of those so-called premium hands, Ace-King (off suit, I believe).  But before I could raise, Lightning beat me to it by raising to $12.  Now I suppose having seen him win a hand playing the mighty 9-3, I should have three-bet him.  Of course, I don't believe he had raised preflop with the 9-3 (though he might have called a raise with it).  I just called because there was no point in risking more than I had to. You see, the way I was running, I felt I had a better chance of marrying the lady depicted below than I had of actually hitting a flop (note: in that scenario, the wedding would be performed by an Elvis impersonator because….well, if you're going to marry a woman like this in Vegas, it would have to be with an Elvis impersonator officiating, right?).

To my surprise, and no doubt to Lightning's as well, about half the poker players in Vegas called the $12.  I think a few players at Commerce also called.  Seriously, I think there were five or six of us who saw the flop.  The flop was Ace-high, and somehow, I didn't faint.  Probably because all I was thinking of was that this meant there was no super hot chick and no Elvis impersonator in my immediate future.  Then Lightning checked.  With the size of the pot and the size of my stack, I was committed.  I just went ahead and shoved.  One by one, everyone folded, including, somewhat reluctantly, Lightning.  He then whispered to me, "You know what I had."  Umm, could it be the dreaded pocket Kings?  Yes, indeed it was.  See, I'm not the only one who gets screwed with them.

The very next hand I got Ace-King again.  This time I opened to $10 and got one caller—Lightning.  The flop was all hearts.  And the red Ace in my hand was indeed a heart.  After he checked, I bet $15 and he folded.

Now, according to my notes, those two hands were the only pots I dragged all night.  And they came back-to-back.  And they were both Ace-King.

I returned to being a spectator and then saw the most interesting hand of the night.  The guy on my left opened the pot to $6.  Lightning made it $25.  By now it was heads up.  The guy on my left made it $65.  I dunno how much longer it took but before the flop they had both gotten it all-in.  Lightning once again had pocket Kings, and boy did he dread them when the other guy flipped over a pair of Aces.  Oops.  The way Lightning was running, I really expected him to pull a King out of his butt.  But not this time.  He didn't improve and ended up shipping most of his stack to the guy with Aces.  Ugh.  I know he was just shocked that the guy opened so small with his pocket rockets.  I muttered that the horseshoe finally fell out of his ass. It was ugly.  He had started the hand with around $330, up from $200.

He busted what little he had left not long after that and it was time for him to head to the airport to catch his flight home. I volunteered to give him a lift.  I had lost the better part of $200 myself.  It was a fun night, but the poker was ugly. But it was a very successful trip for him and it wouldn't be fair to say he played one session too many.  He actually just played one hand too many.  The ol' Aces vs Kings trick.

Final note:  I actually came up with a better title for this post than one I went with.  Is should be, "They shit horseshoes, don't they?"  But I didn't want to use the profanity in the title, and that's the only way it works.  Oh well.