Texas Hold'em - Texas style!

It’s been 73º F and sunshine all day long. So maybe that explains why I had the urge to seek out the smokiest drinking hole in town and play some cards. It seems like a bar by the name of “Rack Daddy’s” got a weekly freeroll jackpot tournament going on Wednesdays.

6.59 p.m.: Nico and I sign up and teak our seats. Seems like there are 41 players, eight a table, so I figure it won’t hurt if we start at the same one. The Tournament Director, a guy in a baseball hat, shouts: “Blinds are twenty-five, fifty. Ever’body who’s plain’ poker, TAKE YOUR SEATS!”

7.00 p.m.: First hands are dealt! Let’s get this thing started!

7.05 p.m.: Feelin’ good. Sipping my Coors Lite I play some uncharacteristically aggressive hands. I lose a hand but manage to scare the other guys out of another and win some chips.

7.10 p.m.: Damn, my aggressive play seems be gaining momentum! I hit an Ace on the flop after raising pre-flop. At least half of the guys who called me must have thought “he can’t have something every time”. I check the flop, trying to lure the others into betting.

7.11 p.m.: Motherf@#*er! The turn reveals a six of spades, netting me two pairs! That hand is mine! I make a modest bet of one thousand chips, a seventh of our starting stack. Don’t wanna scare anybody out of that one. Even so, the guy next to me folds…

7.12 p.m.: Nico: “All in!”

There’s no chance you can have a flush and I’ve got the two highest pairs on the table. So if you wanna give me your chips….

Viktor: “Call.”

River card is a four of diamonds. Sure of the win I make to gather the chips in the pot in the same move as revealing my two high pairs… NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

7.13 p.m.: I got fuckin’ kicked out of the tournament – by Nico! Who the hell goes all-in for a shot at a four-high straight? WTF?! Not even fifteen minutes after getting here! I ex my Coors Lite and stomp off looking for the men’s room. Damn those smoking sons of butchers, if any one of you jerks blows a cloud in my face again I’ll….

Oh, wednesdays whiskey $3.00. Mmmmhhh, alcohol…

7.17 p.m. Sipping my whiskey on the rocks, I’m dividing my attention between Nico’s Hold’em table and the Mavericks vs. Nets game on the huge screen to my right. There’s another freeroll at 10 p.m. We’ll sit at separate tables.

---

Nico actually makes it to the final table.

Jacky Jacket here (blondie just right of Nico) dominates the game, betting every hand and leveraging her high stack position. Eventually, her pocket kings kick out Nico. He finishes 6th out of 41, earning some AHL (Amateur Hold’em Leage) points.

Anyway, Rocky (and yes, that IS what people were actually calling him), whose blurry backside can be seen in the right hand bottom corner of the picture, beats Jacky Jacket in the heads-up.

AHL Poker rules:
At a jackpot tournament only the 1st place gets a chance at the jackpot: The Tournament Director and the winner each draw a card out of two separate decks. Only if the winner matches the Tournament Director’s card does he get the jackpot, e.g.: If the TD draws a jack, you also have to draw a jack to win. That puts your chances at about 1 in 14.

Rocky draws a six to the TD’s four. As a consolation price he gets a $15 bar tab and the jackpot for the next round is raised by $1 for every player. That puts the jackpot at $191.

We play again at 10 p.m. This time it’s Nico who gets sacked early on, while I make it to 15th place.

I guess I know what I’ll be doing next Wednesday.