a real poker player now...

[thewildone]

What I am, however, is a veteran of the Home Game, to which Iggy has alluded on many a post. The Home Game is nearing its five-year anniversary. Its humble origins hearken back to a modest six-player dealer’s choice game hosted by Huggy Bear, another veteran of the Vegas years, when Iggy, Huggy, G-Money, Drew and I ignited huge, irreplaceable chunks of our lives in a holocaust of gambling, dope, psychedelics, Jack Daniels, beer and other drugs too life-damaging to recount here. When we started the game, we were gathered together as friends mostly to celebrate the remarkable fact that we were all still alive. We had all lived lives of wretched excess and moral turpitude, and a couple of us had actually stared into the Abyss. But so far, at least, none of us had shuffled off this mortal coil.

We played draw, seven-card, Night Baseball, Chase the Bitch— you name it. One night— it was, I think, our second or third session — we had what seemed to us a particularly crazy night of poker. Every man-jack at the table was betting and raising. If you raised with rockets, you got reraised. It seemed like every pot scooped was won with a boat beating two high pair. There was much cheering, trash talking and swilling of beer.

Finally, after about two hours of wild swings, it was my deal. I called Jacks or better. I looked down at my cards and saw that I had dealt myself a boat — jacks over aces. Jesus. Even then, as a rank novice, I knew that you didn’t see too many full houses in draw poker. I could feel my face turning red. Iggy bet. Two other players called. I raised. Iggy reraised. The callers bailed. Now it was just Iggy and me. I hadn’t yet learned to fear him, so I capped.

"How many?" I asked.

"I’m good," said Iggy.

Hrrmm. I had dealt myself a [censored] boat, and he was good?

"I’m good too," I said.

"Really?" Iggy regarded me from behind his fortress of empty Budweiser cans and butt-filled ashtrays. He’s a little person (he actually prefers to be called a dwarf; "I am what I am," he says), so it was hard to read him. But I knew he had a hand. He knew I had one, too.

He bet. I raised, he reraised, and I capped it again. Iggy called me.

"Whaddya got?" Iggy said.

"A boat," I said, flopping my cards over as if it mattered. "Jacks over aces."

Behind a choking cloud of smoke from his Vantage Ultra-Lite, Iggy smiled. "Aces over jacks!" he said, flopping over his own hand. Sure enough, he showed the boat. The table burst into an uproar of "No ways!" and "Holy shits!" and drunken laughter. Iggy laughed as he started to scoop the pot. "Good hand," he said to me.

And then something dawned on me. It was as if millions of long dormant synapses in my brain suddenly thrummed with electricity, and I could think again.

"Hold on a minute," I said. "Look at the cards."

"What about ‘em?" said Iggy.

"There’s five aces on the table. And five jacks."

"What? Are you shitting me?"

"Look at the [censored] cards, dude."

We all looked at the cards. There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Huggy Bear picked up the opened Bicycle box that the deck had come from. He held it aloft for all of us to see. The room exploded into chaos. Beer cans went flying, spit takes were performed, poker players writhed on the floor like epileptics and rent their garments like repentant monks.

It’s true. We had been playing poker for two hours with a Pinochle deck.

Now, the moral of this story is not, “Don’t smoke and drink so much so quickly that you don’t even realize you’re playing poker with a motherfucking Pinochle deck.” The moral of this story is that, even though we were playing with a Pinochle deck, and even though I had dealt myself a jacks-over-aces full house, Iggy still had the better hand.

That was my first lesson in playing Iggy at poker. If you’re going up against him, you better have the [censored] nuts.

***

[Baulucky]

Great story.

[thewildone]

just copied it off someone's blog thought it was pretty funny so thought i post it.

[EStreet20]

Same thing happened to my at school once, only we were playing holdem and caught it on the first hand that went to showdown.

[captZEEbo1]

I don't care how drunk I was, no way it'd take 2 hours for me to figure that out. I'd notice after about 5 minutes tops, especially in a game holding 5 cards in my hand....lol. I'm gonna call bullshit that NOBODY at that table is THAT stupid to play for 2 hours without noticing you were playing with a pinochle deck.

[ds914]

I've been a regular in that game for the past few years (Iggy's blog).

Trust me, they were THAT stupid.