When The Nuts Go Bad

The Nuts: noun
1. The best possible poker hand at any point in the game. A hand that cannot be beaten.
2. A place you don't want to be kicked in.

In the poker world, they say that nobody wants to hear your 'bad beat' stories. Yeah, I know they are a dime a dozen, but sometimes I don't mind hearing them, if only to laugh and say "Whew, glad it didn't happen to me!" But most of the time I can do without them, especially from strangers, because as soon as they start talking, I already know how it's going to end. It's like having to sit through somebody telling you a long joke that you've already heard that isn't very funny anyways. Nobody likes that.

But I took a beating several weeks ago that stung pretty bad, and I can't seem to get it out of my head. So you get to hear about it. It was so unexpected and so sudden, that my initial shock overshadowed any chance to get pissed off about it. And I'm hoping it never happens again.

During March Madness, Dougie and I were playing in one of the daily $105 tourneys at the Golden Nugget. I was doing well, had a good-sized chip stack, and both of us had made it past the break and to the final two tables.

I found myself on the big blind with Queen - Ten of hearts. Nobody raised, so I got to limp in and see a flop for free, along with three other callers. When the flop came out, I couldn't believe my eyes--it was Nine - Jack - King in a rainbow of suits!

The Nuts baby! I had them.

I was in early position, so I checked. So did the next guy. One player bet $500, the guy on the button folded, and I smooth-called, as did the third player. The turn brought a rag, so I led out the betting, hoping for a raise. The player on my left folded, but the player who bet on the flop went all-in.

Bam! Oh hell yeah--I was doing the happy-naked-Muppet dance in my head! I had the guy covered, and had a monster hand, so of course I called.

He turned over his cards and said Two pair, Jacks and Nines!

I turned mine over and replied, Not bad, but I think I have the nut straight. A huge groan came up from his end of the table, and I was lickin' my chops, anticipating several minutes of stacking somebody else's chips, which at that very moment sounded better to me than a ten-minute lapdance where the groping lantern was lit.

The rest of the players at the table instinctively rose out of their seats, ready to see a knockout that would put each of them one step closer to the prize money. The dealer tapped the felt, burned a card, and slowly flipped over a nine, pairing the board and giving my opponent a full house while kicking me directly in the figurative nuts.

Immediately, there was sheer pandemonium at the table when he realized that he sucked out on me, and the rest of the players realized that they'd just witnessed an epic bad beat. I couldn't do anything but sit there and gasp at my bad fortune, spitting out a barely audible No f*cking way...

I had the same look on my face that Mike McD had when he realized he'd just lost his entire $30,000 bankroll on one hand. Of course, it wasn't that serious, but I was crippled. I had the guy covered, barely, but I was left to fight off the bullies and blinds with less than fifteen hundred dollars.

A few minutes later, just before the blinds came, I looked down and saw an Ace/Queen of diamonds looking back up at me, so I went all in. Everybody folded. Everybody, that is, except the guy who had all my chips. He looked at his cards once, twice, then shrugged and said What the hell, I call.

He had Ace/Five offsuit, and suddenly I really liked my chances of doubling up and getting back in the game.

Maverick's re-engaging, sir!

But the same dealer who paired the board on me a few minutes earlier couldn't keep the board all raggy for me this time, and he tossed out a five on the river, giving my opponent a pair and knocking me out of the tournament in 17th place. Ugh.

The big pisser of the whole thing was that I got my money in the pot with the biggest hand both times, and both times came up empty. Some novices would say that I should've went all in after the flop to protect against suck-outs, but that has absolutely no bearing on the outcome of the hand in question. Even if I *had* gone all-in after the flop, the guy with two pair sure as hell wasn't going to lay it down. All the same money would've gone into the pot, just in a different order.

And I'm a firm believer in *never* going all-in first when you have The Nuts. I see people doing it all the time in tournaments--scooping up a tiny pot when they get quads on the turn and they go all-in, scaring away the action--then they show their cards like a complete dumbass, wanting to show off a big hand, while basically letting the rest of us know that they are exceptionally beatable. They take that old maxim "Better to win a small pot than to lose a large one" all the way to it's ridiculous extreme. I'd rather take my chances and build a pot. Or better yet, let somebody else do the building for me...

But the difference between quads and a straight is that a straight can be The Nuts right up until the turn. The river, as we saw, can crush you. Quads usually hold up (and if they don't, you're generally gonna score a bad-beat jackpot in a cash game, anyways).

So as much as I've been obsessing about that hand, there is just no other way around it--I just got spectacularly unlucky that day, and it just wasn't my turn to win the tournament.

The funny thing is, I have finally learned to fold a monster hand--pocket Aces, pocket Kings, etc. But I have yet to fold a big-blind hand that lets me see the flop for free. God knows how many of those hands have gotten me into trouble.

Mikey