In an attempt to remember the good old days

I guess sometimes I have a love-hate relationship with poker. I’ve come to that conclusion because in many ways like the other love-hate relationships I have had throughout my life.

Spend too much time with her?
Check

Worried she’ll take over my life?
Check



Drives me crazy?
Check

Great memories?
Check

You get it. But for the most part, poker has been an overwhelmingly positive addition to my life (I think). I vividly remember talking with my buddy Sam several years ago on a Sunday afternoon. I’m driving around talking on the cell phone and he’s telling me a story about his other buddy that just won $12,000 playing CARDS.

I pulled the car over.

TELL ME MORE. And so it began.

I’m trying to say that 4 days out of 5 I really love playing poker. Talking shit, laughing at your buddies while they laugh at you, gawking at girls, free food, trying to get the best of guys you may or may not like very much; it’s very much fun, competitive, alpha-male kind of stuff. It couldn’t be any more “guy” unless there were strippers outside the window. Actually, one day we had a situation that qualified but that’s a story for another day.

Poker has strong parallels to sports, independence, analytics, and even finance. For those of you that know me well, you know that’s a very tight fit. The results are fact-based; there’s nowhere to hide from what happened.

Here’s the point: poker puts me in a pretty good mood most of the time. I have had three shaking, laughing moments at the poker table that I want to preserve for posterity. I guess that makes this post all about me. Maybe you’ll find them funny; I suspect you “had to be there”. It doesn’t matter to me; this is my blog.

I have to preface these public comments with a statement. Two of these stories are about Sam. Sam is semi-famous in our poker room. I really do like him. He’s got a funny accent and has about as much fun playing poker as anyone I know. He loves it; just like me.

He’s one of those guys that makes stuff seem extra funny; there’s no explanation I can give here to those of you that don’t know who I’m talking about. What I’m trying to say is that these stories are funny to me because HE is funny to me. I’m not laughing AT him nearly as much as these stories would lead the uninformed reader to believe.

Anyway (what a leadup!) here are my (now very anti-climatic) top 3 poker stories. In each and every case, I ended up with my head down in an shaking, uncontrollable fit of laughter. I have not had an uncontrollable fit of laughter outside the poker room in this same period of time.


Countdown from 3:

Story 3:

Sam (BIG smile on his face): “Yes, miss? Yes, yes, hot tea please. Make it, uh, hot like you and sweet like me, OK?”

She blushes a little and Sam is per usual, very proud of himself. This is his standard routine and he now has a GIANT smile on his face. He is clearly having a good time.

Harris (not playing along and clearly annoyed with Sam’s antics):

“Can you make it stupid?”

Sam’s smile disappears like he’s been hit in the face. I loose it immediately.


Story 2:

Rod is holding KJ. His opponent is holding QT. Both have huge stacks.

Flop: J94

Opponent bets, Rod raises, opponent calls. $200 in the pot.

Turn (J94): K, completing opponent’s straight and giving Rod top 2.

Rod bets and his opponent pushes all-in for a huge amount, another $1,200 or so.

After thinking it over, Rod reluctantly calls, most likely knowing he’s beat (we’ve all done it. Many times). Opponent wins a huge pot with the nut straight. Rod’s got plenty of money; this is no big deal in the grand scheme of things.

Now, Rod’s favorite phrase is “so be it.” And I like Rod. So this phrase has always seemed extra funny to me. If Rod gets told he’s next on the list: “so be it”. If his wife tells him it’s time to go: “so be it”. I think he even says “so be it” after seeing some of the flops.

At this point, he’s feeling a little embarrassed counting out hundreds of dollars in front of everyone and he’s saying “so be it” like crazy. “What is it? Another $75? So be it.” “He hit his card; so be it.” And I’ve started to chuckle a little at him saying this over and over. Plus there’s always a little bit of “Oh, man, that sucks” humor when someone gets popped, as long as it’s not you. So that’s welling up inside me a little as well.

No one is really saying anything cause it’s a big pot, so the table is a lot quieter than normal...

Silence.

Silence.

Rod to his neighbor in total seriousness: “I was fine until the King came.”

And I loose it. I had to get up from the table. Seriously, how funny is that?


Story 1:

Sam again.

Sam chases all the way to the end of the hand with 22 with no draw that I remember only to spike his 2 on the river for a set of 2s. He and his opponent get all their chips in the middle and his opponent shows him a FLOPPED set. Sam got unlucky by hitting his set but was drawing stone dead the entire hand.

Sam: “That’s a bad beat.”

Words cannot describe how funny this was to me. I was worthless for 30 minutes.


I don’t know if any of you enjoyed any of these stories; I guarantee I will reread these and laugh outloud many times. Hope some of these have a similar effect on you.