Waitin Out the River [Aces High part 1]

Mickey's is a shitty little hole in the wall bar in the middle of nowhere between Raleigh and Durham. It's got two pool tables downstairs, a few tables for college kids to order wings, which are only ten cent a piece on Thursdays, and a couple of air hockey tables upstairs. The college crowd rolls through Thursday thru Saturday, but other than that, the place is pretty quiet. On a Sunday night, it's pretty much dead.

That's how Alex found the place. He was looking for somewhere with a lot of floorspace, off the main roads, and with a quiet atmosphere at least one night a week. Mickey's pub fit the bill to a T. So Alex worked out a deal with the owner/manager and suddenly there was a poker tournament every Sunday night after closing in Mickey's pub.

My crew found out about the game a few months after it got started. We were in Mickey's one Saturday, talking about the game we'd hosted the previous evening at our apartment, and Alex happened to overhear us talking about some of the good and bad beats we'd taken. A little later I stepped outside for a smoke, and Alex found me and asked if we liked to play cards. I'm always a little hesitant whenever someone asks that question, but for some reason I told this dorky looking stranger that I'd never met before in my life that sure, I liked to engage in the odd illegal gambling activity. And boy am I glad I did.

Alex invited us to the poker tournament he hosted, and we decided to play it that Sunday. There were thirty people there, at $20 a head, for a six hundred dollar total purse. Ten percent went to the bar, ten percent went to Alex, and the winner got the rest. That's four hundred and eighty dollars cash money for a few hours of poker. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday night. Some of the people there knew what they were doing, but most were just clueless, and our crew cleaned house. When it got down to the final five, four of them were part of our home game crowd three times a week, and one of my buddies actually won the whole thing.

We played in that tournament every week since, and I'd only missed a handful of games in the intervening six months. The game had grown quite a bit from those early days, though, and it was up to nearly a hundred people every week. The buy-in had jumped as well, fifty dollars a piece now, but there was still a twenty-percent cut off the top for the house and the host. But, with a hundred people, that still left four thousand dollars up for grabs.

That's how I found myself sitting head's up across from a guy at 4:15 in the morning. We'd been playing for six hours straight, and it was down to the two of us. With our stacks almost even, I still had a slight advantage, but I was exhausted. And the hands were coming so fast with just two people betting, checking, or folding that it was difficult to stay focused. Alex, always the dealer for the final table, stifled a yawn behind his own hand. Apparently everyone was getting exhausted, everyone but the guy across the table from me.

He sat in the same position, the same cold, dead look on his face as he had when the tournament had started. Someone had whispered that they thought the guy was connected somehow, but people always said that about strangers in a small town in the south. I wasn't sure about this guy, though. There definitely seemed something different about him. And he could play, too. The guy almost never pushed at a hand unless he took the win. And he never once showed a bluff that I caught, not the whole game. A few times he was beat, but each time he had a legit hand that was usually beat on the turn or the river.

I should probably explain, in case you don't know. Texas Hold'em, the only game worth playin if you ask me, is the game we're in. It's a poker game that's dealt by giving everyone two cards first. Then you have a round of bets. After that, the dealer burns (discards) a single card, then flips three cards face up in the middle--that's called 'the flop.' Then there's another round of bets. After the betting's done, the dealer burns another card and then the fourth card (the turn) is flipped over in the middle. Another round of betting, another burned card, and then the fifth card (called fifth street, or the river) gets turned face up in the middle. The idea is to make the best five card hand you can make using any of the five cards in the middle, and/or the two in your hand. Best hand wins.

In the right game, fortunes can be won or lost on a single flip of the cards.

And while four thousand dollars might not be a fortune, it's enough to pay four months of my rent, so for me, the stakes are pretty high. Alex shuffled the cards, and started dealing. I checked the two cards in my hand, a pair of jacks, and then set them down slowly, calmly. The key to a good hand of poker is not just keeping from showing excitement, it's about convincing your opponent that they've got a better hand than you do, but you don't know it. That's the real trick, and to do that sometimes you have to fake being excited just like you have to fake being disappointed. It's all an act, though, and the key is to keep the real emotion off your face.

At least that's how I've always played it, like a performance. My opponent played it like a rock. He called the big blind, and so I checked. The flop came out with a two of hearts, and the other two jacks. I couldn't believe my eyes, and it took every ounce of control in me not to pick up the two cards in front of me and stare at them. I had just flopped four of a kind, and it was highly unlikely that my opponent had anything that could even come close. As calmly as I could, I checked, passing the bet to my opponent.

He barely hesitated and threw in nearly a third of his chips. I pretended to think about folding, touched my hold cards, but didn't look at them. Then, finally, I called the bet. Alex burned a card, and flipped over an Ace. I didn't even really see the card, though. I checked the bet, and immediately my opponent bet half his remaining stack. This time I pretended to be very concerned, thinking over what my response should be. I even waited until Alex started the ten second timer, forcing a decision on me before finally calling the bet.

Alex burned a card, then flipped over a six. That was it, the final confirmation that I had the absolute best hand it was possible to have. There was no possibility for a straight flush, though there could have been a straight or a flush given the cards on the deck. Still, my pocket jacks combined with the two jacks on the table meant my four of a kind was unbeatable.

"I'm all in," I said immediately. I knew I had more chips than my opponent did, not much more, but enough. If he called this bet, that would be it. I'd be going home with four thousand dollars.

"Fuck you," the other guy growled. It was the first time he'd spoken all game, and his accent sounded thick and northern. "You think you some kinda card shark or somethin? What, you make your flush on the river and think you big and bad? You don't think I can beat your flush? Hell, I'll call your bullshit river flush, country boy. Read 'em and weep, full house with deuces over jacks!"

He threw down a pair of pocket two's, which meant he had hit a full house on the flop with the third two and two jacks. Normally that would have been a good hand, what I liked to call a sneaker, since I'd never even considered it a possibility when looking at the cards on the deck. But this time he'd put just a little too much faith in it.

I smiled, "So you call the bet?" I asked, and the guy nodded. "Then push the chips in the middle," I said, and his face turned dark red. "Look man, around here you ain't bet it till it's in the middle, so push it in."

My opponent got up and flung his chips into the middle with a snarl. "Fine, show me your fucking flush."

I stood and calmly flipped over my pocket jacks. "Four of a kind, jacks. On the flop. Thanks for playing, douchebag."

"What did you call me?" The guy said in a creepy whisper. Suddenly he moved, quicker than I would have thought possible. Next thing I knew he had me by the throat with one hand, a bone-handled knife in his other. The point of the long, mirror-polished blade hovered just an inch from my left eye. "Did you call me a fucking douchebag, country boy?" He whispered in that thick Long Island accent, gin stinking on his breath.

There was a sharp click as Alex pressed the muzzle of a snub nose .38 against the stranger's head. "Listen, I don't want any trouble, and neither does the owner. He made me promise not to shoot anyone in his bar when this whole thing started, and I'd really like to not break that promise. Okay? So why don't we all just relax and be cool, okay?"

"You think you can pull the trigger before I stab you in the temple, poker boy?" The stranger growled, seemingly unfazed by having a gun pressed against his head.

"Yeah, I do," Alex said shakily, "but I'd really rather not. So how about you just get the hell out of here, and I won't press send on 911 with the cellphone in my other hand, okay?"

The man glanced down at Alex's phone in his other hand, then seemed to think for just a second longer before letting go of my throat and stepping back. Alex pushed me behind him, and kept his pistol trained on the man as he walked calmly back around to his seat to retrieve his black suit coat. The bone-handled knife disappeared somewhere so quick and smooth that I couldn't tell where he'd hidden it, then he fixed me and Alex with a cold glare. "If you think this is over, you're stupider than you fucking look." He growled, then he left, walking as calmly as if he didn't have a loaded, cocked revolver pointed at his face.

When the door finally swung shut behind him, Alex dropped back into his seat, his hands shaking. I pulled a cigarette out and tried to light it, but my fingers wouldn't work right. Two of my buddies had been sitting by the wall and they were still too stunned to even speak. So I walked over to the bar and grabbed a glass and a bottle of bourbon.

"Anyone else need a drink?"