Hit in the Head...

...with a deck of cards.

**Spoiler alert -- the following post contains much poker-related content.**

In addition to the numerous kitchen table poker games that spring up around the holidays here, I try to get to the casinos (nominally boats, but they sure don't look like boats) as the closest and biggest poker room in St. Louis is about 5 minutes from my house. This is about 110 minutes closer than the closest poker room to my apartment in Boston. So, this Thanksgiving I got in two separate trips: the first I ended up about $45, but it should have been more as I played hungry and tired and stooopid; my second trip I got hit in the head with the deck and ended up $125. Both sessions were$3-6 limit, by the way.

This second trip was fun -- I had quads in a pot with 6 runners pre-flop; flopped a couple different full houses and even had a Broadway straight withstand a third heart on the river (these seriously old, and loose, players were in it to win it with any two cards). As I was stacking chips, I remembered my session in L.A.: those crazy gamblers play $4-8 w/$1 chips so that there are piles and piles of chips in the pot, so if you win a pot it takes a number of hands just to stack all the cash. I won about three huge pots in one round and was just trying to keep up -- stacks and stacks of chips; always a good time.

On my first trip, I had quite an interesting first hand. I sit down in the big blind; I have trouble getting my chips out of the rack, and then fumbled them a little bit posting the blind. A Paul Darden-esque (PD) jerk to my left limps in and literally everyone else folds. I check my option w/78o and see a flop of 9-10-5 rainbow. I check because I tend to play pretty tentatively during my first round and PD bets out. I call hoping to turn the nuts: this doesn't happen, but I do make a pair on the turn (the 8 of hearts). I check again, and PD hesitates before betting once more. My spidey sense is tingling; either he's got QJ and the nuts, or he's got nothing. The river brings an off-suit nothing card (2 of something).

Here's where it get interesting: I check, he checks. He says, "Two pair." My heart sinks a little and he makes a feint towards flipping over his hand; but, he never does it. I'm holding onto my one pair and waiting: finally he says, "What do you have?" I, of course, said, "I called you, brother" as our game of chicken continues.

I finally decide that his vocal two pair is junk, and flip over my cards announcing the lone pair that I had. He flashes J4o (in 1st position!) and mucks w/a not quite sheepish grin on his face.

Moral of the story: protect your hand at the table; don't release your cards until you're positive you have a loser, and often you should just flip it over -- especially if you're playing out of your element, in an Omaha game or something.

By the way, he chastised someone later for misreading his hand. Ironically, PD won that particular hand -- and he was still belittling the older gentleman. PD busted out a few rounds later...!