I’m sitting at 1-2 no limit at Cesar’s in AC waiting patiently, folding hand after hand. After about an hour without seeing a river I’m dealt AK on the button. I bet 20 bucks. Two callers, a wizened, old black gentlemen who looks uncannily like the late Ossie Davis and a 20 year old Gotti boy with a crimson Yankees cap, its perfectly flat brim tilted ever so slightly to the side, and a pencil thin beard trying in vain to create the illusion of a jaw line instead of two pudgy chins. Flop is Q,10, deuce, two spades. Straightening. Check, check, I bet another 20, both call. Turn is a jack, payday. Ossie bets 20 bucks, Yankees folds. Fearing the flush draw I raise all in with my remaining $100 or so. Ossie stares at his cards, stares at the pot. I’m relieved. If he had a strong hand he’d have called by now. I wonder what facial expression or body language I should be displaying to best induce him to call. Do I look aggressive and hope he takes it for a bluff, or look anxious and weak? I’ve been playing pretty tight and he probably noticed. I doubt he has me on a bluff. I stare at the smeared plasma above his head. Tiger chunks one left and curses under his breath. Ossie ever so slowly pushes his chips past the yellow line. I turn over Broadway and he shakes his head like Tiger did a moment earlier. Trip jacks. I have him. River pairs the board, he fills out for the boat. Unfuckingbelievable.
Well, you can always write about poker for a living…
I’ve read this thing four time now, and I’m still not sure. Did you win? And who are Tiger and River?
River = the fifth community card in Texas Hold 'Em.
He lost, incidentally.
A bad beat?
There were 10 cards in the deck that helped the guy.
He made a bad call, but not an egregious call, on the turn. He might have just as easily put you on AA or KK trying to drive out straight draws with your big turn bet. As it was, he was getting about 2.5-1 on a 3-1 shot (albeit with no implied odds).
This hand wouldn’t even make the appendix of the third edition of “bad beats”.