Stupidest Poker Decision I've Ever Made

OK, to be fair, it’s probably not quite the stupidest poker decision I’ve ever made.  And it certainly wasn’t the most expensive bad poker decision I’ve ever made.

For that matter, it wasn’t even a poker decision, technically.  It was a decision about poker, sort of.

I headed out to Ventura Saturday for another session at Player’s Casino.  Due to any early morning appointment, I got their earlier than usual (around 12:30PM) and it was even busier than usual.  I think I got the last parking spot available, or close to it.  The tournament was still taking up 7 tables.  There were lists 20+ players long for both the 1/2 and the 2/3 games.  I got on both lists and after about 45 minutes or so, had managed to get near the top of both lists.  They had opened a couple of tables since I’d gotten there and were actually calling names pretty fast.  I believe for the past 20 minutes or so, they had been calling players for one game or the other on average of every 2 minutes.

I looked up and I was second on both lists, but I was pretty sure they had already seated the player in front of me for the 2/3 game and just forgotten to taken him off, so I figured I’d be in that 2/3 game any minute now.  At that point, I made the decision that, if I was called for the 1/2, I’d tell the guy that since I was first up for the 2/3, I’d pass and wait for that.  I was sitting right next to him, so it would easy.

You see I really wanted to play 2/3 not 1/2, and it sure looked like if I did take a 1/2 seat, it would only be minutes before I’d get the 2/3 seat.  What was the point of sitting a few minutes at a game I didn’t really want to play just to move?  Plus I’d have $1 chips—a hundred of them—that I’d just have to exchange for $5 chips when I moved.  Hardly seemed worth the inconvenience.

But then….nothing.  I swear it went 10, maybe 15 minutes without them calling anyone to either game.  It was strange.

So when they finally called a 1/2 player, and then, half a minute player called a second—that would be me—I decided that I could no longer count on being called to the game I wanted that quickly.  So, like an idiot, I took the seat at the 1/2 game. Since I had no intention of staying in this game—unless in the brief time I was there I spotted something incredible that would make me want to stay—what was the point of seeing a few hands that I likely wouldn’t even play?  Was I that desperate to get my hands on some cards?  Not really. I mean, regardless of the outcome, it was just a brain dead decision.

But that’s what I did and they brought me a hundred dollar chips and I sat there with no intention of staying more than a few minutes.  And thus didn’t really pay attention, as I figured why study the players if I wasn’t staying?  I did notice one thing—a guy made a big bet on the river that another player called with very mediocre holdings, and was good.  The guy had made a pretty big bluff bet.  And since the guy who called had been playing with him awhile, presumably, he probably knew there was a high likelihood the guy who bet was full of shit, as he was.

So I was dealt a hand and mucked.  Then I was dealt King-Queen suited and limped in. I think I would have raised if I had planned on staying but with my short shelf-life at this table, I figured I’d just invest the minimum to either make a hand or let it go.  I missed and folded.

I got one or more garbage hands and then, just as I was sent the first card of my next hand, I heard my name being called for the 2/3 game.  I should have just gotten up then and not even looked at my cards.  But I figured, what harm could there be in looking?  I yelled out that I wanted the seat but that I was in a hand.

I peeked at the one card that had been dealt to me.  It was a King.  Oh well.  I figured the second card would be a deuce or some equally worthless card and I’d be on my way.  But if you haven’t figured out by now that the second card was also a King, you have never read this blog before.  Yes,, my last hand at this table—that I had been at for all of 5 minutes—was the dreaded hand.

Well, even under these circumstances, I’m not about to fold pocket Kings (when will I ever learn?).  On this hand, someone had straddled and the guy I mentioned who was caught bluffing a hand or two earlier called the straddle ($4).  So I made it $20. 

And then the guy next to me shoved for $31.  Now, here’s where maybe, just maybe, my inattentiveness to this game hurt me.  He had just lost most of his stack the hand before.  And I heard him say something about shoving now.  But I didn’t hear anything else and I kind of assumed he meant he would wait for a hand that was good enough to take a chance to shove with.  You know big cards, a pocket pair.  As I later learned, he had actually said he was planning on shoving blind, which is what he did here.  Wow.  I realize, $31 is not a lot of money but still, unless you have a plane to catch, what’s the rush?  And this is $31 to a guy who bought into a 1/2 game where the max buy-in is $100, not $31 to a guy playing 5/10 at Bellagio.

It folded to the guy who called the straddle, the guy I’d seen caught in a bluff.  He called.  I was hoping he’d repop it but all he did was call.  The $31 shove wasn’t enough to reopen the betting for me, so all I could do was call too.  The three of us saw the flop.  It was Ace high, of course.

The guy who had just been caught bluffing shoved.  His stack was pretty close to mine.  I suppose I could have folded, but this is the problem with playing in a game where the maximum buy-in is 50 big blinds.  The stack-to-pot ratios are going to be low.  And based on my stack, and his, I figured with the $31 I’d already put in, I was committed.  When I thought about it some more, I remembered the hand where I saw this guy bet with total air, and figured there was at least a chance he was bluffing here, or maybe he was doing that with second pair, which I think was a 8.

So I called. The board blanked out and he showed Ace-9 offsuit, of course.  The other guy flipped over his hand, hoping he had gotten lucky, but he had not.  The Ace-9 guy took it all.  Turned out he had $5 less than me, so I took that $5 left over into the 2/3 game I’d been called to.

When the short-stack turned over his cards and said that he had no idea what he had, the guy next to him said, “You didn’t look?”  He replied, “No, I said I was gonna shove blind there.”  Well, the other guy hadn’t heard that either, so maybe I can’t blame my inattentiveness.  But if I had known that, I would have limped in for $4, waited for him to shove blind, watched the other guy call which he surely would have done—and then shoved myself—$98 total.  That would have been the play.  Would the other guy have called his whole stack there with his Ace-9 off?  I don’t know.  But I’m thinking if he called $31 with it, probably so.  So it likely wouldn’t have mattered.  It still would have been the right play.

So I started the new game already $100 in the hole, not having played a hand there, having played like 5 hands in a game I didn’t want to get in to.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Of course, the fact that it was my nemesis hand, the dreaded hand, just added insult to injury.

The 2/3 session turned into pretty much a break even one.  I won a few decent pots early and dripped the profit all away.  Nothing worth talking about. 

So I booked a 3-1/2 hour 2/3 session BE, and a 5-minute 1/2 session for -$100.  All because I changed my mind and decided to take that seat in a game I didn’t want to play.

Stupid, stupid decision.

A Night of Disappointing Games--Poker and Football

Originally, I was planning to head back to L.A. from my most recent trip to Vegas on a Monday, the Monday after this story took place.  But as the trip was winding down, I had been doing pretty well, and I didn’t really have anything on the calendar to come home to, so I decided to stay one more day.  One of my motivations was the fact that this particular Monday night was the first Monday of the NFL season.  That meant that the MGM would be running their football promo for two games, not just one. Double the opportunity to get picked for a cash prize or two. As you will recall, in the post I linked to, I was picked once and won $300.

I had already decided to extend my stay before hitting that promo that Sunday night, and winning the $300 made it seem like an even better decision to stay.  Although, I suppose I could have looked at it the other way and reasoned that I had used up my luck on football promos and there was no point coming back the next night.  It all depends on how you look at it, right?

I had played at MGM for both the Thursday night game and that Sunday night game, and in both cases, the games were fine.  But this Monday night, not so much.

I got to MGM a bit before the first football game started, a scintillating affair between the Falcons and the Eagles.  I couldn’t have cared less who won, I just wanted to see a lot of scoring so my chances of getting picked for the cash prize would increase. There was a decent amount of scoring in this game, at least.

But the first table they sent me to was awful.  I didn’t recognize any of the players, but it was super, super tight.  No one was putting chips in play—except me, it seemed, I kept losing those.  There was one other problem with the table—the temperature.  It was absolutely freezing where I was sitting.  Now, this was still summer and the temperature outside was still over 100°, but my seat was about 45° if that. I was shivering even though I had bought a sweat shirt to put over my long-sleeve shirt.  I might possibly I’ve stayed there if the game was any good, but the combination of a terrible table and the freezing conditions was enough impetus to get me to ask for a table change to the other side of the room where it was much warmer and I was no longer in danger of coming down with frostbite.

Unfortunately, the game wasn’t any better.  Now, I recognized one or two of the players, but I started hearing a lot of conversation and I realized that it was mostly regs at this game.  I could tell because they were all talking about their results in the freeroll that had taken place Sunday morning (ie, yesterday).  All of them were clearly veterans of the freeroll and in fact, they had all played at least 30 hours leading up to it get double the starting stack.

So the question was, if these guys were all regs, how was it I didn’t recognize them?  By now, shouldn’t I recognize most of the MGM regs?  Well, I have a theory about that.  I think the allure of the back-to-back football promos brought out a lot of the regs who might ordinarily play at times when I’m not there—overnights, or during days.  They figured they could make a huge dent in the number of hours they need to put in while having a shot at some free cash.

I have to assume that the presence of all those regs—and regs who were clearly intent on earning hours for the next freeroll—impacted the games. I mean, if there were any tables with a lot of loose tourists, I sure hadn’t found it.

I was down to a bit more than $100 when I moved to this second table.  I hadn’t written down a hand at the first table, and I had thus lost nearly half my stack in totally undramatic fashion (and without winning a pot there).  It didn’t take too long for me to have to top off my stack with another $100.

One guy at the table who was not a reg was an older, white haired gentleman.  He was complaining about high tight the table was.  At one point, he shoved a relatively short stack, and when the other player folded he said, “I guess I’m the only one who wants to gamble.”

Finally I got a hand to play—Ace-Queen offsuit.  I raised to $8 and this old guy called, along with one other player.  The flop was Ace high and I bet $20, only the old guy called.  The turn was a King, and I bet $50—he called.  The river was blank and I bet $65.  He went into the tank, and then looked straight at me and asked, “Are you local?”  WTF?

I started laughing, it was such a non-sequitur.  At first, I didn’t say anything but he asked again.  I said, still laughing, “What difference does that make?”  He finally folded and said, “You play like a local.”  OK.  It did remind me of the time some total jerk asked me, “What’s your nationality?” and I went ballistic (see here).  I did not laugh that off.  But clearly I was in a better mood.  I even told everyone about the guy asking me my nationality as I stacked my chips, still chuckling.

At one point during the game someone I didn’t recognize came over to say hello.  He was not a young man by any means, and he said, “Hi Rob…..I’m Larry.  I met you once….”  Yeah, indeed, I remembered.  I mentioned meeting Larry at the WSOP Deepstacks in the post here.  He had recognized me from the Ante Up pic and wanted to tell me he was a big fan of the blog.  Subsequently, via email and in blog comments, “Big L,” as he signs his name, has made me one of the most interesting and unusual offers I can remember getting.  He has offered to take me to a Vegas strip club and buy me a lap-dance.  Now that is one hell of an offer.  But I have to say, the idea of a man buying another man a lap-dance seems just a bit strange to me—unless it’s either a bachelor party or some guy’s 21^st birthday party.  Well, I’m not getting married and my 21^st birthday was a few years ago.  But I really appreciate the offer, sir.

Anyway, he knew I was playing there—I’d told him on Twitter—and said he just came by to say hi again.  Wow.  He told me he had played at the Aria 1PM tourney and was likely going back to play the 7PM.  But sometime later, I noticed he was actually sitting at another 1/2 game right there one aisle over from me.

Also at that same table was my pall Don, who I last mentioned in the post here.  Don texted me earlier and asked if I thought the games at the MGM would be good for the NFL promos.  This was early, before I realized I had discovered two tables that were not very good.  Based on my nice result the night before—including hitting the promo—I told him yes.  When he arrived, he was sent to that other table and I told him not to bother transfer to mine, and to see if his was any better.  Unfortunately, he figured out that there were a bunch of regs at his game too and it wasn’t much (if at all) better than mine.  So I didn’t bother to try to get in his game either.

I would have moved to his game anyway, to be sociable—or perhaps looked for a different game to try—but I had to maneuver around eating.  You see the big block of football games right around meal time presented me with a challenge.  I had to eat after the first game started and before the second game was over.  My initial thought was that I’d hopefully have enough time between games to take a quick dinner break.  I had also strongly considered just grabbing a sandwich from the deli and bringing it back to the table and eat while playing.  In fact, thinking I’d likely be doing that, I didn’t want to move to another table until after I’d eaten, as the one good thing about my current seat was that there would be room for a cart right next to me to eat off of, and there was no guarantee it would be so convenient if I moved tables.

But two things affected my thinking.  One, as the first game appeared near conclusion, I wasn’t really that hungry yet.  And second, it actually appeared that there was a chance the first game would go into overtime.  And I thought, what if the second game starts while the first game is in OT?  Double the scoring chances—for sure I didn’t want to be away from the table if that happened.  So I decided to hang on and eat during the halftime of the second game.

Well, that second game, if you will recall, was between the 49’ers and the Vikings and was god-awful.  Seriously, it was a terrible football game.  In fact, I believe it has already been voted the worst football game ever played.  You can Google that if you don’t believe me.  There was no scoring during the first half at all until the very end of the half.  And again, I had no interest in the outcome, I just wanted lots of scoring.  So this second Monday nite game was not exactly the game I was looking for. 

By this time, the idea of eating at the table didn’t appeal to me.  The trouble was, there was no sandwich I could eat that wouldn’t be extremely messy and difficult to eat at the table.  I envisioned getting either mustard or BBQ sauce—depending on my sandwich choice—all over my fingers and thus the cards (Note: the only mustard available at the deli is in those tiny little tin foil packs, and I defy anyone to open one of those without getting mustard on their fingers—if not your shirt).  I am a fast eater, the deli area was pretty empty so I decided to just take a shot and see if I could gobble down a sandwich during half time. 

Now, after that score late in the half, there was, in my estimation, so little time left that the Vikings, trailing 7-0, wouldn’t even bother trying to do anything, they’d just run out the clock since their offense had been so pathetic up to this point.  So as soon as the random seat was selected for the cash promo and it wasn’t me, I bolted and hit the deli up and got my sandwich.  By the time I sat down to eat it, I was surprised that the game was still going and that the Vikings were actually attempting to score. The deli is located right next to the sports book so I could follow the game.  And damn, it sure looked like I was gonna miss a score.  It appeared they had a shot at a long FG attempt—but opted go for a TD instead.  I don’t remember it exactly, but I was happy that they didn’t score and I didn’t miss one of the few opportunities during this pathetic game to win a seat drawing.  You know, now that I think about it, I’m kind of surprised that after this game, bad as it was, they just didn’t decide to disband the NFL right then and there so that the public would never again be treated to such a horrific display of ineptitude.  And by the way—can someone please explain to me how Colin Kaepernick still has a career?

Anyway, I was almost done with my dinner by the time the half mercifully ended, so I had no problem getting back to my game before this scintillating display of boredom resumed.

And at that point, I asked to get a table change to where Don and Larry were sitting.  I mean, how could I resist playing with someone who liked my blog so much, he wanted to treat me to a lap dance?

The table with Don and Larry, when I finally got there, was actually a bit better than the other two games.  There was one certified donkey putting chips in play, and there were some big stacks, so it wasn’t a nitfest by any means.  The trouble was, the big stacks all belonged to really good players and thus hard to extract. But at least the conversation was fun.  Especially from Larry, who was almost embarrassing me telling me how much he loved my blog.  There were a couple of regs at this table who knew me and were probably surprised to hear that I had a blog, although they didn’t ask about it.  It turns out that Larry is a really cool, really funny guy.  And I might even have said that if wasn’t a huge fan.

Don and I actually did get into a couple of hands together.  I called his raise to $12 with pocket 4’s and hit a set.  The board was 10-5-4, and I checked.  He dutifully put out a $22 c-bet and I checked raise to $55.  He speculated aloud on the likelihood that I was bluffing (not very) and then folded Ace-King.

Then, I believe I was in the blind with Ace-8 off and there was an Ace on the flop.  I kept calling Don’s small bets.  On the river, he was betting $25 and I figured I was probably outkicked.  But I called because the $25 was just small enough to rope me in.  I probably wouldn’t have called $35.  He had Ace-2.  But unfortunately for me, there was a deuce on the board. 

Having to get up early the next morning for the drive back home, I called it an early night. I’d struck out at the football promos, to mix metaphors. Although I dropped a couple of bills playing in three different games that were all fairly lame, it turned out to be a good decision to stay that extra night.  It’s always fun at the poker table with Don, and I was glad I got to know Larry better.  He is a real hoot.

As for the games, well, I do think it was the back-to-back football promos that made the room a bit top-heavy with regs (since I didn’t recognize so many).  And truth be told, there were at least three other tables going that I could have checked to see if they were jucier games, I suspect one was.  I should have been willing to try them all.  Next time……

The Slow Fold

I guess you could consider this post a prequel to the one that appeared a few weeks back, here.  This session took place the day before that post.

Unlike the night after, this was the night I did not request a table change and I stuck around longer than I wanted to chasing promos.

I arrived in the room around 7PM, an hour before the 8PM drawing.  Thus, an hour to win some tickets for the drawing (flush or better) so I could have a shot at the prize.  I asked, and there was one $1K envelope left, meaning the first person picked would get $400 and there would be 6 $100 winners after that.  But there were two envelopes left that were worth only $200 each ($100 to two tickets).  I had a half-written blog post back in the room that I wanted to finish that night, so I was really hoping to make it an early evening, after getting a quick double-up or two and then winning the $400 cash drawing.  That was the plan, anyway.

It actually didn’t take me long to get a couple of tickets.  In the big blind, I had Queen-7 off and there was no raise.  The flop was 10-10-7 and no one bet.  The turn was a 7 and now, with bottom boat, I had to bet to get the pot big enough to earn a ticket ($10 min in the pot).  I bet $5 and got a call, ticket secured.  I’m not sure if I bothered to bet the river, probably didn’t, fearing the other guy had a 10.  But I showed my hand, he mucked and I won a small pot and got my first ticket for the 8PM drawing.

Very next hand, now the small blind, I had Ace-King off.  After a couple of limpers, I just completed.  I’m not sure why I didn’t raise…when I heard myself recording my audio notes the next morning, I was questioning it myself.  I guess it was because I was so new to the table that I didn’t want to play it out of position for a big pot.  Whatever, a raise there might have taken it down preflop and it’s a good thing that didn’t happen.  The flop was Ace-King-King.  I checked and it checked around.  I had to bet the turn, which happened to be an Ace, so I put out $5 and got one caller, enough to get another ticket at least.  I think I bet $10 on the river but didn’t get a call.  I had to show my hand to get a ticket.

This table was actually pretty damn nitty, I soon learned.  I thought about moving, but I figured that perhaps the table’s nittiness would make it easier to get more drawing tickets, so the plan was to move after the 8PM drawing, which wasn’t that far off. 

There was a guy at the table who figures into to the climax of this post who had this weird habit of opening the pot to $4.  You see that occasionally in Vegas but it’s pretty rare.  It’s also pretty dumb.  I mean, I really don’t know what you’re accomplishing by raising that small.  This guy had mentioned that he would be leaving soon after the drawing to have dinner with his buddy at MGM’s steakhouse.

Anyway, on this hand, he was the small blind and I was under-the-gun with pocket Queens.  I opened to $8, there was a call, and he (the raise to $4 guy) raised to $21. The big blind called, I called and the person who called my $8 called, so four of us saw the flop with a pot that was now around $80. 

The flop was 9-7-6, rainbow.  And so the small blind bet $50.  The big blind tanked forever but finally folded.  I looked over at the other player—a woman—and could tell by the way she was holding her cards she was going to fold as soon as she could.  So it was going to be heads up with the small blind. By this time my stack was somewhat under $200 but he was shorter than me.  In fact, the $50 was more than half his stack, if barely more.  He had about $40-$45 behind.

Well, with an overpair to the board and an effective stack-to-pot ratio or close to one, the play there is to get my stack in the middle.  At least that was my thought at the time.  The competing argument however is, how many hands is he three-betting from the small blind with?  Ace-King maybe, but is he going to c-bet into 3 players with nothing there?  Maybe that’s the argument I should have listened to.

But no, I shoved.  The lady folded as expected and he snap called.  I asked, “you have Aces or Kings?”  He didn’t say anything, just flipped over two Aces.  Ugh.  The board bricked and I had to top off my stack with another $100.

Not long after this they had the 8PM drawing.  It turned out to be only for $200 and neither of my tickets was picked.  This meant there was a 50-50 chance they’d pick the $1K envelope at midnight.

I should have kept with my plan of changing tables, but I didn’t.  For one thing, I had gotten comfortable at that table (physically, not comfortable with the players). For a further explanation, see the post I linked to at the outset.  The other factor was that some of the players left my table after the drawing and I hoped that their replacements would play looser—and fishier. And then too, I figured if I was still looking to make it an early evening and was probably not going to be playing that much longer—assuming I didn’t get any drawing tickets early.

Instead, I played and kept bleeding chips.  I added on another $100 at one point so I was in for $400.

In the big blind, I had 10-5 of hearts, there were a bunch of limpers.  No one bet the flop, which had two hearts.  Third heart on the turn, so I bet $5.  Someone raised to $20, I called.  I called $25 on the river though I suspected my flush was no good.  I was right.  He had the Ace-high flush.

Ugh.  I was now down to less than $50 in front of me and it was still early….around 9:15PM. I didn’t want to leave quite that early.  And of course, even though I lost that hand, since I had a flush I was entitled to a drawing ticket.  The dealer said, as he pushed a ticket towards me, “Well, maybe you’ll win the $400 with this ticket.”  Yeah right.

I had a decision to make in an instant.  Pull out another $100 and try to turn things around, or just return the ticket back without filling it out and taking off.  I think if it had been a half hour later, I would have left.  But I decided to invest one last $100 bill and keep going.  I’m embarrassed to say that the thought of the cash drawing definitely influenced me a bit—especially since I had a drawing ticket and plenty of time to get more.  And so now you know why the next night, in that post I linked to at the outset, I decided not to chase the promo and left when I did.

Next dealer, I had Ace-8 off in the big blind.  No raise.  The flop had an Ace on it but was otherwise low.  I checked/called $5.  It was now heads up. Another Ace on the turn and I checked/called $10.  The river was an 8.  I checked, he bet $20, I checked raised to $50 and he folded.  But I showed the boat to get another drawing ticket.

A bit later I had pocket Aces.  A short stack made it $8 after a couple of limpers.  I made it $36.  It folded back to the initial raiser who shoved, but it was only another $10 or so.  He had Jack-10 of diamonds and of course caught his flush.  I had the Ace of diamonds, but the fourth diamond never showed up.

I managed to hang in there without really building my stack much but not losing enough to where it the stack was too short to play.  In the small blind, I had Ace-Queen offsuit and just completed.  Five of us saw a flop of Ace-Queen-x.  I bet $5, had one caller.  I bet $10 on the turn, a blank, and got a call.  The river was another Queen, and I bet $25, this time no call, but I show the boat for another ticket.

They announced that the midnight drawing would be for….$200.  The $1K would be given away at 4AM.  Ugh.  I had three tickets and they were only going to be two $100 prizes.  Great idea that was, hanging around for the promo.  Ugh.  Well, I had to wait a few more hands until they pulled the tickets out—I’d invested this much time and money and $100 is better than nothing.  And so, as they started to draw tickets, the big blind came around to me and I had to post it or be ineligible for the drawing.  My mind was completely off poker and all about what a jerk I was for staying so long chasing the stupid promo when the poker gods were telling me it clearly wasn’t my night.  At that point, I think I would have folded to any raise unless I had Aces or Kings.  I had about $120 left and was looking at a $380 hit to my bankroll.

So of course, as they pulled the first ticket out (it wasn’t mine), I looked down at the dreaded hand. Yep, two black kings. Seriously?  I was really, really tempted to muck them unless I could see the flop for free.  But of course, I didn’t do that.

By this time, the guy who liked to raise to $4 had returned from his steak dinner and had been sent back to this table.  He was now sitting on my immediately left.  So of course, under-the-gun, he made his weird $4 raise.  Before it got to me, “Lightning-guy” was the only caller.  I called him that in my notes because he looked an awful lot like Lightning.  He wore a baseball cap and had the same type of moustache as Lightning.  But he was a much worse player than Lighting—a real calling station. For only two bucks more, do I just call, since I had already mentally checked out of the game? No.  I played it right.  I made it $20.  The four-buck guy called, but Lightning-guy folded, so we were heads up on the flop.

It was 10-high, with two diamonds.  I bet $30.  He called.  The turn was a blank.  I couldn’t see how I could bet anything less than my stack so I put it all out there.  He tanked, and asked for a count.  It was $69.  And as he thought it over, I started thinking about the $500 I was about to lose this night.  A lot of it could chalked up to chasing the damn promo.  Stupid.

But at least he didn’t snap call, so I assumed I was ahead at the time.  He either had Queens or Jacks or a flush draw, I reasoned.  I would have been perfectly happy to see him fold so I would be left with some money for this miserable night.  In the meantime, while waiting for him to decide, they pulled the second ticket and it still wasn’t me.  My only chance to leave with chips was to win this pot.

Finally he called.  The river was a Jack.  It was red, but a heart, not a diamond.  Still, I didn’t like the Jack, thinking he may have rivered a set.  I flipped over my Kings and he did the slow roll.

No, no….it wasn’t the slow roll….it was the slow fold.  You’ve seen this, right?  He looked at my hand, looked at the board, looked at his cards.  Then he looked at the board and studied it some more.  Apparently he thought if he looked at it long enough, he could figure out a way to beat my Kings. 

But finally he said, “You’re good,” and folded face down.  I call it “the slow fold.” Then he added.  “The Jack helped, but I needed a diamond.”  So…Ace-Jack of diamonds?  Or Jack-something of diamonds?

Anyway, my night had been salvaged somewhat.  I picked up and cashed out for about $240.  So only a $260 loss.  Thanks to pocket Kings, of all things.

Hopefully I’ve learned my lesson about chasing promos.