Almost as Dead as the Norwegian Blue

This is the story of my most recent tournament experience in Vegas, the Saturday, Binions 2PM deepstack tournament.  I already hinted about this tournament and told about one unusual hand from it, when I got a walk with the dreaded pocket Kings (see here).  Now I can fill in the story around that hand….what happened to get me in that awful position, and what happened after I got the walk with those Kings.

After being totally card dead and not really participating during the first level of the tournament, things changed for the better once we got to level 2.  In middle position, I found Ace-10 spades, one limper to that point.  Tired of sitting there doing nothing, I raised to 700 (blinds were 100/200).  One guy called, a guy in late position who had played less hands than I had, but he had that young, aggro look about him.

The flop was Ace high, two clubs, no spades.  I bet out 1500 and he called.  Queen on the turn, not a club, so I bet 2k and he called again.  A red King on the river, and I decided to value bet.  Too often I play it safe in that situation, but I figured his most likely hand was a busted flush draw.  I also didn’t want to give up control of the betting.  I was afraid if I checked he might bet more than the 2k and put me in a difficult predicament. I just had to hope that, if he had an Ace, my kicker was good.

He looked at the board a long time and thought for a bit and finally folded.  He didn’t show, but he said he had King-Jack of clubs, so he missed his draw, but the King on the river made him think about calling.  But he was wise enough to put me on an Ace.

With the blinds at 150/300 there was a crazy hand.  Under-the-gun limped, I was next to act with pocket Queens.  I made it 1500.  Everyone at this table, the next table, and across the street at the Golden Nugget called!  Seriously, there were six of us seeing that flop, which was Ace-4-5. 

With the Ace on the board, it was hard for me to believe that my Queens were good against five other hands.  I decided to cut my loses and check.  When one guy after me bet out and another guy called, I folded.  The turn was a 7 and the guy who bet the flop put out another bet, and was called.  The river was a 6.  The guy who had led out the last two streets checked, and this time the other guy put out a big bet.  Reluctantly, the other guy called. 

“I got there,” said the guy who bet the river.  He flipped over Ace-8 for a straight.  The other guy was quite upset, showing Ace-4 for a flopped two pair.  He actually criticized the other guy’s play, and said something about hoping he would keep playing like that.

Hmm, if you ask me, they both played badly, calling my early position raise with weak Aces.  But what do I know?

First to act in middle position, I raised with Ace-7 of spades and didn’t get a call.  A few hands later I raised with Ace-Jack and got one caller.  I whiffed on the flop but took it down with a continuation-bet. I was starting to build my stack now.

A few hands later, in the small blind, I got Ace-Jack again, this time both diamonds.  A guy made a raise and the button called.  That’s probably a good place to fold, but I decided to call and see the flop.  It was Ace-high, one diamond.  I was of course worried about a bigger Ace, especially from the guy who raised.  But I am trying to be more aggressive in tournaments now, so I decided to lead out and see what happened.

They both called my bet, which was about ¾’s of the pot.  Did they both have bigger Aces than I had?  The turn card was the second diamond, giving me the nut flush draw.  No point in slowing down now, so I bet about 2/3’s of the pot.   The preflop raiser reluctantly folded.  The button took a few minutes more and then folded face up—Ace-Jack.  “I assume you could beat that?” he asked me, and I said nothing as I took in the pot.  The other guy said, “I hope so, I folded Ace-Queen.”

Heh heh.  Aggression pays!

After the break, at the start of level 5, I had 31K in chips (starting stack 20K), with the blinds at 300/600 (no antes yet).

In the cut-off seat I had Queen-10 hearts. It had folded to me so I bet 1600, one guy called. Flop was 10-9-6, 2 hearts. (Edited to add, this has been corrected, as cokeboy99 pointed out in the first comment below, I obviously had the flop wrong initially). I bet out 3K and he check-raised to 6K.  Too many outs to fold there, so I called.  Jack on the turn gives me an open-ender.  This time the guy bets first, and shoves for about 6500.  No way I’m folding both the straight draw and the flush draw there, and I had him well covered.  I figured I was behind and I needed help, but no, all he had there was Queen-2 suited!  He had made that move with just a straight draw, the exact same draw I had.  Fortunately, I missed my draw and my pair of 10’s was good.  Nice chip up there.  Everyone at the table, including me, was surprised he had made that move there.

At the start of the 7^th level, with blinds at 500/1000, I had a stack of about 42K.  I lost chips when I called a raise with pocket 6’s and missed, and when I raised with King-10 off and had to fold to the chip-leader’s three bet (he showed QQ).  Then I was moved to a new table when our table broke.  First or second hand there, a short stack shoves with 2100.  I had pocket 8’s with plenty of players behind me.  I decided to shove there to isolate, and hoped that no one behind me had a big hand.  My stack was pretty big so no one called.  He flipped over Ace-Queen but my 8’s held.

Still I bled chips a bit, and at the start of the 8^th level, with blinds 100/600/1200, I had around 34K.  That’s when disaster hit.  Early in the level I had Ace-Queen of spades in early position.  I raised to about 3500.  A guy I had covered repopped it to 8K or so.  I could have easily folded, but I thought long and hard about my decision.

In the old days, I would have folded quickly.  Now, not so fast.  The guy who three bet hadn’t been particularly active since I’d been at the table.  But I was getting to the point where I felt that if I could get a big score there, I’d have a really good chance to finish well into the money, instead of just barely cashing or worse, playing like forever and missing the money completely.  And if things went badly there, I would have the whole evening free to play a cash game.

Then too, I think I miscounted his remaining stack when I was considering my action.  I really thought I’d have more chips left if I went all in, was called, and lost.  And I thought he was low enough in chips to be trying to make a move.  But mostly, I just kind of decided to roll the dice there.  So I shoved, and he snap-called.

Ugh.  Of course, of course, he had the dreaded pocket Kings, and I was the one who dreaded seeing them, as usual.  I was less than 2 to 1 to take it down, and I didn’t beat the odds.  In fact, not only did an Ace not hit, but he flopped his set for good measure.

I went from a decent stack to being crippled.  But I guess I got what I wanted.  Looked like I’d have plenty of time for that cash game in the evening.  In my mind, I was dead, tournament-wise.  I was as dead as a certain parrot in a certain Monty Python sketch.

As soon as I saw how few chips I had left, I started hating myself for taking such a needless risk there.  Having over 30K chips there would have left me plenty of maneuvering room.  Now I had virtually none.  In fact, I was so low in chips that I stopped making notes of the hands I did play, because I was so sure this tournament wouldn’t amount to anything to blog about!

I’m pretty sure that I had more chips left than the 4800 I noted when I got the walk with my own pocket kings, in the post I linked to at the start of this one.  And I know I did shove once or twice at that table and didn’t get called.  But somehow, I dropped down to 4800 from whatever that disaster hand left me with (it was under 10K for sure, that’s all I can say with certainty).

Anyway, I was moved from that spot to balance tables.  The move put me in the big blind within a hand or two and you already know what happened with that big blind….I got the walk with Kings.

Then Audrey pushed into to deal and basically, a miracle happened.

So maybe with around 5K in chips, maybe a bit less, I got King-Jack offsuit and in my situation, that’s an easy shove.  Only one guy called, a big stack with Ace-4 off.  A Jack on the flop kept me alive.  One or two hands later, I shove with King-Queen, same guy called me.  This time he has Ace-9, which I think was sooooted.  The board blanked until the river, which was a King!

Now with a bit over 20K in chips, just a hand or two later I get dealt pocket 10’s.  I felt I had enough chips to play poker with, so I raised (a pretty big one, I think, but I didn’t note it cuz I still thought my tournament life was soon to be over)  but didn’t shove.  Only the guy on my immediate left called.  The flop was a beautiful Ace-10-4 and the other guy leads out with a bet.  Nice.  I suppose there I could have smooth called or raised just 2X his bet, but I didn’t want to take a chance.  I just shoved.  He had me covered and could have called I suppose, but he let it go.  Still, a nice chip pick up.

A few hands later, I shoved with Ace-King.  I didn’t have to shove, but having gotten lucky with a few lousy hands hitting the board recently, I didn’t want to have to have the flop hit me again in order to survive.   No one called.  Since everyone at the table had seen my last two all-ins, I flipped over my hand there and said, “That’s the best hand I’ve shoved with.”

I had enough chips now to limp with pocket 7’s.  Three others limped in and the flopped totally missed me, and had a high card or two (no Ace).  It checked to me so I bet the flop and no one called.

Again, my notes were not kept up, and I when I finally realized I might have something going there, I tried to catch up and probably missed a lot.  I did write down that I had 58K in chips at one point, and I think that was soon after Audrey left the table.  I know when she left, I had gone from the short stack to the chip leader—at my table, that is.

I’ve heard of people coming back from the dead in a tournament like I had, but it had never happened to me before.  I couldn’t believe it.

I continued my assault for awhile.  I was raising preflop with hands like Ace-4 and pocket deuces.  I wasn’t getting called.  I did get called when I raised with King-Queen suited, and even got called when I made a c-bet on the flop, which missed me.  But I picked up a flush draw on on the turn and hit the flush on the river (he didn’t call my river bet). 

I think my high point, chipwise, was 93K, probably when the blinds were 300/1200/2400.  Then my aggression starting costing me chips and it got whittled back down to about 85K.  Then I got some bad luck.  I was at a table where my stack was among the biggest, but they needed to balance the tables and as the big blind, I was moved.  Damn if I didn’t get sent to the table where all the huge stacks were.  Seriously, my 85K stack seemed tiny all of a sudden.  Especially compared to the tournament chip leader who was on my immediate left!

Oh, and by the way, that tournament chip leader?  He was the guy who I had doubled up when he had the KK and I had the AQ.  Yeah.  I wasn’t the only one who had made a nice recovery.  He was all in against me, held on, and now he was the goddamn chipleader.  He nodded hello, but didn’t thank me for sending him on his way to being chipleader.  I guess he had indeed put my chips to good use.

Making moves with the chipleader to my left proved costly.  With blinds now at 300/1500/3000 I rased to 9500 with Ace-8 offsuit in late position.  Only the chip leader to my left called. The flop came Ace-7-6.  I bet 15K and he made it 30K.  Gulp.  What do you do there?  I decided to fold.  I didn’t like my kicker.  But of course he might have been making a move on me there too.  Another error was limping in from the small blind with Jack-5 suited and spewing chips chasing a flush draw that didn’t come.

With all those big stacks bullying me around, at the start of the 400/2000/4000 level I was down to 47K.  I picked up blinds and antes being first in a pot with pocket 9’s.  Then I got AA in the small blind.  Damn, it folded to me.  I made a small raise hoping the chip leader would try to use his stack to make a move.  Nope.  He folded 5-2 face up.  I showed my Aces.  I guess that was basically the same as the walk I got with the KK earlier.

So it was at next level (500/3000/6000) when this hand happened.  We were down to three tables, I guess about 24-25 left.  Thirteen were going to get paid.  The bottom five slots were getting $220 (it was $125 buy-in).  It was late, after 8PM, maybe later.  I had already stuffed a couple of hot dogs down during the break that was going to pass for dinner.

I had about 50K, or a little more. It folded to me on the button with Jack-10 offsuit.  At that point, it was a fairly obvious shove, so I went all-in.  Of course the chipleader/BB/KK guy to my left called.  He could easily afford to lose 50K in chips, he’d barely notice.  He flipped over Ace-Queen, ironic, since that’s the hand I had when I doubled him up.  His wasn’t even suited.

Three bricks on the flop, another one on the turn.  I stood up and started reaching for my sweatshirt behind me.  And from a standing position I saw a beautiful Jack hit on the river.  I was alive!  It turned out the guy the chipleader was a really nice guy.  As I was stacking my chips, he just shrugged and said to me, “Well, I owed you one.”

And then I went totally card dead, and as we got closer and closer to the bubble, I had even less incentive to make any moves.  Down to 14 players, we agreed to pay $150 the bubble, so I had made it into the money.  My stack had whittled down to 85K as we started the 1000/4000/8000 level, in other words, I was totally desperate.  A few people had busted after the bubble and I needed to outlast about two more players to get more than the absolute min cash of $220.

When I looked down at Ace-9 clubs, the first Ace I’d seen in a long, long time, it was an easy shove for me.  Unfortunately I was called by one of the big stacks who only had Ace-King. But no clubs, and no 9, hit the board to bail me out and I was done.

It was one hell of a fun 8-hour roller coaster ride.  At one point earlier, I was full of confidence that I would cash.  Just a little while later, I would have bet the deed to my house that I wouldn’t.

As I got up, the chipleader still, the guy I doubled up with his KK, reached out to shake my hand.  As I shook it I couldn’t help pointing out that if that King on the flop had only been an Ace, he would have been done a long time ago (I said it very politely and very friendly, believe me).  He laughed and agreed.  He probably finished in the top 3 of the tournament if he didn’t win it outright.  And he came awfully close to busting out to me there.  Yes, yes, I know, he was better than a 2 to 1 favorite on that hand.  Still, there was a better chance of an Ace hitting than there was of a King hitting.  And yes, I’m reminded of one of my father’s old sayings, “If my grandmother would have worn pants, she would have been my grandfather.”  Yeah, I know that’s an incredibly outdated saying, but back when he first heard that saying, it really was unusual to see a woman wearing pants.

But then, I had my share of “if only a X didn’t hit”s and I would have been gone hours earlier too.

Poker is a silly game.

The String Bet

Before any of us played poker in a card room, or even played poker at all, we probably all saw poker depicted in old movies and TV shows. Although any movie genre might show the odd poker game, the ones that stick in my mind are those old westerns.  And the old TV show, Maverick.

There, you’d invariably see some guy bet, say, $100 and then some old codger would say in response, “Well, I see your hundred…..raise it five hundred.”  And first he’d put out a $100 bill (or a hundred dollar gold piece) and then put out five more, two separate acts. 

As anyone who has ever played live poker in a poker room knows, today that raise would be disallowed as a “string bet” or a “string raise.”

Of course, in those old movies, you’d also often see the guy who wanted to raise throw his gold watch into the pot, or the deed to his ranch, or his favorite horse.  That too is something you’d never see in a live card room, but this is not a post about table stakes.

Thus, one of the first things a player playing poker in card room learns about is that you can’t make a string bet.  Probably every player makes this mistake early once or twice (if not more) when they first start playing. Hopefully, after getting burned a few times, they are more careful and stop doing it.

As you know, to avoid making an illegal string bet, the player either has to say “raise” first, before putting any chips forward, or put all the chips that are part of his bet and raise out in front at the same time.  Many, if not most, poker room tables have a “betting line” on the felt that makes it easier to identify when a bet is a bet.

The surest way to avoid the problem is to verbalize your intentions.  If you say “raise” loud enough for the dealer—or any of the players, really—to hear, you’ll be fine, since, as we all know, verbal is binding. Of course, if you say “raise” you are obligated to put out at least the minimum legal raise.  If you don’t say raise before putting your chips in front of you, you better be sure you have all the chips in your hand that you intend to bet when you put them out to make your bet.

I guess sometime after all those movies were made, someone thought that making a string bet was a form of angle-shooting and decided it was inappropriate for a polite, state-monitored poker game.

So I blame those old movies and TV shows for the confusion new players invariably have.  I suspect home games where rules are more lax are also partly to blame. 

Last week there was a big ruckus over whether an intended raise was a string bet or not, and it definitely affected the way the hand played out.

Under the gun with Ace-Jack suited, I raised to $8.  Two seats to my left, an annoying young punk kid made it $20. It was like the third time he’d three-bet me when I raised, and as I hadn’t been raising that often, it was really starting to piss me off.  He didn’t seem to three-bet anyone else.

It took a long time for me to have to make a decision, however.  Another guy called and then it went to the guy in Seat 2, who as far as I could remember, hadn’t played a hand since the aforementioned Maverick TV show went off the air.  Seriously, my impression of him just by seeing him when he came to the table was that he was going to be aggro.  I just got that vibe.  But I was totally wrong. The guy wasn’t playing many, if any, hands.

This time things were different.  When it came to him he carefully cut chips, counted them, re-counted them, all well behind the betting line.  It sure looked like he was going to re-raise.  Seeing as how he was playing so tight, I couldn’t even put him on Aces there.  I figured he had the “guaranteed to win the pot no matter what” card.

Then, after he had counted and re-counted and re-counted again for good measure, he appeared to have three stacks of $20 chips ready to put out.  But instead of pushing all three stacks forward simultaneously, he picked up one stack of $20, placed it over the betting line, and then, and only then—definitely after the chips touched the table, but not by much—did he say, “Raise.”

And as he was putting the other two stacks over the betting line, the dealer informed him that she couldn’t allow the raise, it was a string bet, and that it would only be a call of the $20 bet.

The player was aghast.  He explained that it was obvious from his actions that he intended to raise.  He said “raise” (true, but he just hadn’t said it soon enough).  The dealer said no, it was  a string bet.  He said he was doing what he was doing to show the player how much he was going to raise.  The player to this guy’s left suddenly decided to become the Table Captain at this point and informed the player he had made a string bet and it couldn’t be allowed.  The bettor ignored him and pleaded his case with the dealer, who asked if the player wanted to ask the floor for a ruling.

The player most assuredly did.  Meanwhile, the Table Captain, who for the rest of this post we will refer to as “Jon Hamm,” acting on his own ruling, mucked his cards, and the cute young girl from Texas to Jon Hamm’s left (and my immediate right) called the $20 bet.

The reason we are calling the Table Captain “Jon Hamm” is that the cute young girl from Texas told him he looked like the Mad Men actor, Jon Hamm, and he in fact admitted that he had been told this many times before.  I agreed with that assessment myself.  At least, the guy looked a lot more like Jon Hamm than I look like Robin Williams.

The dealer held up the action, saying everything was frozen pending a floor ruling.  When the floor came over, he shut everyone up (mostly the string bettor and Jon Hamm, who, I should point out, was out of the hand by now, his mucked cards irretrievable) and heard from the dealer.  Despite the player’s pissing and moaning, the ruling stood and he was not allowed to bet $60 as he cleared wanted to do.  His action was just a call of the three-bettor’s $20 bet. He had put out just the amount of the original bet in the first motion, and he said “Raise” a second or two too late. As the floor was about to leave, the player asked if he could go all-in blind before the flop.  The floor said he could do that, but he didn’t recommend it.  I should point out that I was pretty sure that the player who made the string bet was an experienced player, not a novice, and had just screwed up this one time.

The cute young girl from Texas, who was the big blind, called.  So back to me, with four people already in for $20 each, with the pot therefore quite large, it was pretty easy for me to add $12 to see the flop, even though I figured there was a good chance I had the fifth best hand at that point.

The flop was Queen high, rainbow.  Nothing there for me.  To my astonishment, the cute Texas girl put out a bet, I want to say it was about $25.  It was too small for the pot, I knew that for sure.

But still, I couldn’t believe she was betting there.  I will mention here that this girl had announced she was playing poker in a card room for the first time ever.  From watching her play for a while, it was clear that she knew poker somewhat, but she was lost about poker room etiquette.  When she left later, she asked if she had to announce that she was going to leave in advance, and tried to cash out with the dealer.  Frankly, if anyone at the table was going to make a string bet, I would have thought it would have been her.

From her play, and from the comment, I pegged her as a very tight player, so when she led out like that, I would have bet anything that she had a set of Queens there.  She knew poker, I thought, and could easily call $20 with QQ, and then, with her set, she now had the best hand.  Otherwise, I couldn’t see her betting into a three-bet and guy who wanted to four-bet.  I thought she knew enough about poker to know not to do that without a big hand in her spot.

I folded and the original three-bettor put out something a bet the size of the pot, a big re-raise.  The next guy folded and action went to the guy who couldn’t string-bet.  He didn’t say anything but was clearly in a quandary.  And then, within about 10 seconds, Jon Hamm, who wasn’t in the hand, called time on him.

I thought that was way out of line.  The guy who had the action on him was shocked and asked him what he was doing, especially since he wasn’t in the hand. He politely told him to shut up and mind his own business. But Jon Hamm said he wanted to play some poker, he wanted this hand over with, and everyone knew what he was going to do, he’d already said he wanted to shove.

The guy was furious and the dealer had no choice but to call the floor again.  The dealer told the floor that the player didn’t have a reasonable amount of time to act before Hamm wanted to call time on him.  There was another long discussion with the string-bettor, Jon Hamm, the floor and the dealer.  If Hamm had just kept his big mouth shut, we would already have been playing the next hand.

So the floor gave the guy a minute, and then would start a one-minute countdown.  The guy was ok with that, and announced to the floor that he was going to act at the last possible second, just to be a dick, because he thought Jon Hamm was being a dick.  And in this case, he was absolutely right.  The guy who looked like Jon Hamm was indeed being a dick.

The guy verbalized his problem (saying more than he should have, since the cute Texas girl was also still in the hand).  He said that guy who had raised obviously knew what hand he had, and therefore he must know that his hand is better than his.  I really thought he was gonna call, but, as the floor started to countdown the final 10 seconds, he mucked.

Somehow, one of his cards got exposed as he mucked.  It was a King.

The Texas girl called all-in for less than the bet that the guy had made.

The board was dealt out, nothing interesting looking.  To my utter astonishment, the cute Texas girl flipped over King-Queen for just top pair, 2^nd best kicker.  I was floored.  I had totally misread her.  She had indeed bet into all that strength with a pretty mediocre hand, not the monster I had envisioned.

Original raiser mucked when he saw her Queen!  WTF???  He said he had Ace-King suited.  His big post-flop raise was basically a continuation bet/bluff! 

The guy who wanted to four bet looked like he was gonna vomit.  He said had pocket Kings, and I totally believed him.  I can’t imagine him wanting to four bet there with anything less.

So his failure to adhere to the string bet rule had cost him dearly.  If he had made the $60 bet as he intended preflop, he might have taken it down right there.  If not, he had the best hand post flop too. If Ace-King suited would have called his $60 preflop bet (doubtful), he would almost assuredly not made his flop bet as he had, and the string-bettor almost certainly would have taken the pot on the flop. His not getting his raise preflop changed everything.

Instead, the cute Texas girl got a better-than-a-double up calling a $20 raise with King-Queen offsuit out of position.

The moral of the story is, be careful not to string bet!

Walking With Kings

I’m back in L.A. now, and it may be awhile before I’m back in Vegas.  Two rather long visits in a short period of time have taken their toll on me.  I needed to be in Vegas a lot because of the WSOP, AVP events, and visitors coming to town that I wanted to see.  Now it’s time to return to some sort of normalcy for awhile.  Hopefully this will allow me to get caught up here.  I actually have leftover adventures, stories, anecdotes, tales and yarns from my past four visits that I can finally get to.  (Note: I know that “adventures, stories, anecdotes and yarns” is redundant.  Basically they are all the same thing.  But I have been getting complaints from readers complaining about my posts being too short, so I need to pad this)

This yarn is just a snippet out of the last tournament I played in Vegas, last Saturday.  The entire story of that tournament is quite remarkable and worthy of a blog post all its own (maybe even a two-parter!), but for now I want to isolate one hand from that tournament because it so well fits into one of the main themes of this blog—the dreaded pocket Kings.  No, I didn’t bust with them.  I won with them.  And it was awful.  Huh?  Read on…..

I was doing well in the Binions 2PM tournament, and then suddenly I wasn’t.  Details to follow.  For now, all you need to know is that at the level where the blinds 100/600/1200, I had around 5k-6k in chips left.  Maybe a little more, but not much.  The big blind came to me, and I was pretty much in a situation where I almost had to go all in there, especially if no one raised first. 

I looked at my cards as the action started next to me (normally, I don’t wait until the action’s on me to look).  For the first time since this cursed hand started becoming—well, a curse—I was actually happy to see a pair of Kings.  Happy?  More like ecstatic. 

I thought, finally I would get some chips! I probably didn’t have enough chips to get anyone to fold, which was fine by me. Maybe a couple of players would give me some chips.  And…if I had my usual bad luck with them, well, at least I’d bust out with a so-called “premium hand” and not some junk hand like Jack-7.  I could live with that.

I was hoping to see maybe a raise and a re-raise before it came to me.  More chips for me.  Let everyone else fight for a big side pot, just give me the little main pot, a double up, a triple up….dare I hope for it?  A quadruple up?

But what happened was that one player after another folded.  It folded to the small blind.  WTF???  The small blind was short-stacked too, and was Donna, a friend of mine (she was the inspiration for the title of this post here).  I was going to feel bad about busting her, but hey, all’s fair in poker, right?

She folded too, giving me a walk.

Yeah, I got a walk with pocket Kings.  In a situation where I really, really, really needed to chip up!

So I swept in the small blind and some antes.  That’s it.  It was probably worse than losing with those damn Kings, winning with them that way.

Of course, that may be the only way I can win with them, but damn, I really needed some chips there.  And since I was on life-support anyway, if I had had my usual luck with them, at least it would have been a quiet, quick, relatively painless mercy killing. Instead, it just prolonged my seemingly inevitable demise without helping me in the significant way I needed.

Instead, I was in no better position than I was before the hand.  Not put out of my misery, but not in any way closer to being alive and well.

Those damn Kings had let me down yet again!

A few hands later, Audrey pushed in to deal.  Audrey is the dealer who let me know that she read my blog by mentioning “the dreaded pocket Kings” when we sat next to each other at a tournament at the Venetian (see here).  Which reminds me.  In that post, I was bewildered by why Audrey was being so coy in how she revealed that she knew about my blog, rather than coming right out and telling me.  Audrey actually explained it to me the next time she saw me after I published the post I just linked to.  She said she wasn’t sure I wanted to be “outed” as a blogger in public; she didn’t know how I felt about that.  She thought I might want to keep a lower profile, so she left it up to me to reveal my identity (as a blogger).  It was a simple as that.  I appreciated her discretion!  The truth is, I never really know how I feel about being exposed as a blogger (or as a poker columnist) at a poker table.

Then she said, “Of course, afterwards, I saw a pile of issues of Ante Up in the front of the room, with your picture in there!”

I laughed.  At that time, no one had ever recognized me from my Ante Up picture, and I told her that.

Anyway, when she pushed in, I was going to tell her right then and there about my bad luck with the Kings but something incredible started happening that distracted me.  But that “incredible something” will have to wait until I tell the full story of this tournament.

However, on the next break I did tell her the story of my Kings getting a walk.  She laughed and then told me her own worst-beat-ever-with-pocket-Kings story.  I hope I remember the details correctly.  She was playing a cash game and was the big blind.  It folded to the small blind who didn’t want to chop.  Instead, he raised.  She looked down at KK and said okay and raised back.  Before she knew it, they were both all in preflop.

They both showed their cards and he had, not Aces, not Queens, not AK. but….pocket 6’s.  Yeah, he got all his money in heads up preflop with pocket 6’s.  But wait, it gets worse.  It seems that a card had been exposed during the deal and was known to be in the muck. 

That dead card was a 6!  The guy got all his money in preflop with 6-6 knowing that he had only one card left that could improve his hand—he had a one outer.

Of so Audrey thought.  The guy caught a four-card straight and took Audrey’s stack.

And know you know why she hates pocket Kings as much as I do.

(Edited to add:  The story or the rest of this tournament is told here).