The Way I Played It

Almost 3 years ago now I started playing for a living not knowing if I could make it or not. I quit my job and hit the road with my cat Molly, who thankfully traveled very well. My first trip was to Tunica Mississippi. I had several friends that were pros I knew from Saint Louis and we headed down for the big tournament in January.

I booked a room at the Horseshoe for a month and played every day. I snuck Molly into the hotel. Once a week I'd find a maid in the hallway to clean the room and give her a nice tip. Most of the maids were afraid of cats so I'd put Molly (sweet, harmless little Molly) in her traveling cage and move her to the bathroom and back to avoid a confrontation when the maids cleaned the rooms.

There was quite a mix of players in Tunica that year. A drunk millionaire who tipped anybody near him when he won, a deadly beautiful princess (literally a princess from some Arabic country) with long jet-black hair who had left the caste to try to make it playing poker, (I saw her picture in a Poker magazine for winning a tournament a few years later so I guess she made it), a recovering coke fiend X-Hollywood-producer-current-alcoholic who made Tunica his home and had a voice like nails on a chalkboard except more shrill and grating, Lorna who was faking an injury and supporting herself with workmen's comp, Sarge the old, crippled, nearly deaf toothless racist who everyone seemed to love and my poker friends. Throw in the usual energy surrounding a big tournament and it made for some wild games.

So I'm in Tunica about the 3rd night, up a little bit for the trip and I'm in the big blind of a $20-40 game with a half-kill and I can feel the game getting ready to erupt and I look down at a 6-8 offsuit. It's raised a bunch of times and comes to me and I can either cap it or fold and for some reason - I have no idea why - I cap it. Even in the short time I'd been at Tunica this weird little poker family knew I was a solid player so they put me on Aces or Kings. The flop comes 7,5, 2 rainbow and the little blind bets into me. At this point I figure all my outs are probably good if I can narrow the field - the 2 straight cards and the 8 (as it turns out the 6 would have been good as well) so I raise it and the big cards drop, but one cute little Asian girl calls along with the small blind who is a middle-aged man, an average player, and, as it turns out, a man who likes to gamble.

The turn is a 4 giving me the nuts. This is the fun part. The little blind checks and I bet and I get raised by the Asian girl and then the little blind re-raises! A friend of mine at the table shakes his head to commiserate with the bad beat and then I say, "Re-raise." He seems more than a little shocked, but has to figure I have the nuts or I've lost my mind. In fact to have the nuts he knows I would have to be more than a little nutty because it would mean I capped it before the flop with a 6-8 so he is very curious. Well, strange things happen in Tunica in the middle of the night.

Both players call me. A blank comes on the river and the little blind bets again and I raise. The little Asian girl stands up with her cards clenched in her hands and walks away from the table. She can't release them. She is holding pocket 4's. The dealer tells her to come back. She is frozen about 10 feet from the table. The dealer doesn't know what to do. She is showing everybody her pocket 4's and a few people watching are telling her that I must have a straight and she says, "I KNOW, I KNOW!" I tell the perplexed dealer to forget about it and the guy in the small blind calls and shows a 3-6 for the smaller straight. The girl crumples her cards, drops them on the floor and leaves. The guy who lost was very gracious and seemed to enjoy that I was gambling. "Nice hand. I hate these rocks who never gamble and don't give another player any action," he said.

I proceeded to go on a nice little run after that, played solid, had a bunch of big hands and got called down every time. That 6-8 was a key hand for me because my bankroll was relatively small at the time and it was crucial for me to win or I might not have sustained to a point where I could play for a living. Although I would likely play it differently now I've got to think, given all the circumstances, I played it right back then.