I seriously contemplated folding.
All I had to do was fold about five more hands, and I would guarantee myself a winning session. It was foolish to think this way as a poker player, of course. The game never ends—the players and environment might, but the randomness of the cards doesn’t get changed by taking a break from the game.
But I loved the feeling of walking out with extra Benjamins in my pocket. There was something that said “baller” about walking out with a thicker wallet than you walked in with.
If it had been any hand other than pocket aces or sevens, I would have folded. But sevens were my favorite cards.
Sevens were, as I was told many times growing up, the perfect number. In poker, it was no different. If I hit a seven, I won often and I won big. If I didn’t hit a seven, it was easy to get away from the hand with minimal loss. It was the lowest of investments for the highest of returns. That, and I just liked the idea of lucky sevens like I’d seen on a slot machine.
I threw my $12 in to call. Everyone else folded, and it was the four of us to the flop with about $45 in the pot. I had position and would know quickly what to do. The stacks were going in, or not a chip more.
The dealer burned one, flipped over three cards and a deuce showed in the window. Off to the side, I saw Ross’ eye twitch by the slightest of millimeters. The king of clubs appeared again, and BAM! The third seven, the seven of hearts!
Holy fucking shit, I am on fire.
I had to move my hand over my mouth. I prayed no one would notice, or no one would figure out what was going on.
Ross’ eye twitch made me curious. If he had pocket deuces, as my gut told me, his $500 was going to me and I would have enough of a stack to jump two levels in stakes. Narrowing his hand down to one possibility was not realistic, but it also didn’t have any impact on my decision making.
The original bettor calmly collected his chips, and pushed out $30. Ross looked at him and looked back at me, contemplating his action. I prayed for Ross to get out of the hand so that I wouldn’t buy my way out of another possible friendship, but I wasn’t going to let him off the hook if he stayed. And if he had deuces, there was no shot he was getting away.
Deliberately and slowly, he called.
I waited until the dealer turned to me. I put $30 down, then grabbed an extra 14 red chips. I stacked them loudly on top of each other, and slid it out with ease.
“Raise,” the dealer announced. “To $100.”
The original bettor leaned over to look at me, then looked at Ross.
“$100?”
“Yes sir.”
“OK,” he said. “I’m all in.”
He slid his remaining chips in, about $160 worth, and put both hands on his chin. Ross looked pained, like a man who reached his dream and then realized it wasn’t what he thought it was. I was almost certain he had deuces—if he had kings, he wouldn’t be acting this way. He wouldn’t have called a raise with king-seven, king-deuce or seven-deuce. The only hand he had was deuces, and I quietly hoped he got away from it.
As much as winning a huge amount of money was worth, it wouldn’t be worth having a frustrated table mate who would probably not answer my calls or messages about a kickball league. If I offered someone a spot and they beat me for $500, it’d be hard to go back to it. I didn’t want to risk losing this chance of having a social outlet.
I felt my head start to pound a bit.
“Fuck,” he said. “OK, I’m all in.”
He pushed his chips out, and I sat there taking restock of my thought process. Was I sure no one had kings?
