Life and Times of a Poker Addict

Before I get to the most ridiculous poker story ever, just wanted to comment quickly on the conspicuous absence of the blog for the last month or so. Quite simply, I wasn't playing a whole lot of poker until the last two weeks. But the game is back on track and we're having a profitable week here at RossiCo, so the bankroll is making a recovery.

Last night I played at the Warehouse with some of the regular crew and a few new guys in and out throughout the evening. In trying to skip straight to the meat of this tale, I will summarize by saying everyone had their foot in Uncle Rob's ass last night except for me. The guy lost four or five all-ins and was down about $400-500 for the night. The last time he lost he doubled up a friend of his who just started playing with us, Eric, to around $350.

So Rob bought another $300 in chips for his stack because there was a lot of money on the table last night. That all happened around 2:30am and play ends at 3am. At 2:45am we start one of the last orbits of the night. I'm in the big blind and Uncle Rob limps from under the gun. Eric raises to $5 from the next seat and we fold back around to Rob, who thinks for a moment before making it $105 to go. No, that's not a typo. In our .25/.50 NL game he limp-reraised to $105.

Action's back on Eric and he's locked up. Cannot decide what to do. He's thinking. And thinking. And thinking. And thinking. He's sitting there and it almost looks like he's gonna come back over the top, and then it happened. Our dealer Bill pulled out the hamster. There's a hamster kept at the Warehouse that sings "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers. It's usually broken out when someone has sat over a hand entirely too long.

So as the familiar refrain of "you've got to know when to hold'em... know when to fold'em..." pipes out of the hamster, Eric looks up and says, "I've got a bad feeling, I fold this..." and throws his hand into the muck face up. I want you to imagine for a second what hand you think would cause you this much consternation in a sometimes very loose game. Pocket eights? nines? Jacks? Ace-King?

Au contraire, bon jour. Our hero, Eric, folded black Aces face up. Pocket rockets. Eke and Ike. American Airlines. The best starting hand in motherfucking poker, and he folded it preflop when he got raised into knowing all the money could have gone into the middle.

Here's what would have happened:

Flop- 2 5 8 rainbow
Turn- 10
River- 8

Uncle Rob had pocket tens and would have crushed Eric's Aces to the tune of $642 in the pot.

Greatest laydown in the history of poker.