Detox at the flop house no booze allowed
Remember the good old days with the rockabilly crowd
Memphis is where he’s from
He lives in the street but he’s no bum
A rockabilly star from the days of old
He used to have teeth all filled with gold
A platinum voice but only gold records
On the bass was boots on the drums was checkers
Luis Vuitton with the Gucci guitar
Tonight was a very strange night.
ARH and I went to Jackie’s to play NL HE. They have changed the $1-$2 game to be “1-2-5″ which means 1-2 blinds but a minimum bring in of 5. So, it still costs 3 to see an orbit, but it costs 5 to see a flop. The effect is that it plays much more straightforward because the BB and SB aren’t shoe-ins (sp?) on every hand.
On the fifth hand of the night (app 6:30pm), I get ATs. The flop is ok, but the guy who bets it is known to bet anything. I call and the turn gives me a draw to the royal flush. I call his bet and hit the royal on the river. He bets 20 on the river, I make it 60, he calls, I prove to the table that I am the greatest player in the entire world (ok, that was overstating it…I just show that I hit a very nice river). So, I made a royal – playing both hole cards. My name goes on the board for high hand. Of course, I can’t lose the high hand, but I could still split it if somebody makes another royal by 10:30pm. Otherwise, I pull in about $100ish. The only thing that disqualifies me is if I am not actually there when the clock strikes 10:30.
I actually pondered a few scenarios in my head of what could possibly pull me away from the table before 10:30. I had trouble thinking of a scenario.
It’s now (oh wait, JJF has trouble with the simple literary device of using the present tense while describing past events – maybe I should type slower…) about 8:30pm and my phone rang. It is my sister-in-law, which is odd. Sisters-in-law don’t usually call unless there is a good reason. I am staring at $500 in chips (on a $200 buy-in), a table full of fools and a sure thing on collecting $100ish on the high hand jackpot when she says, “ADT called. Your fire alarm went off.” Jane is in North Carolina, so I immediately darted and went home, leaving $500 in chips and the sure-thing jackpot behind.
I had to fight through a lot of traffic because lightning had knocked out a bunch of lights. The knocked out lights led to wrecks, which led to more traffic. There were trees split in half on three different spots on NW Hwy and firetrucks everywhere. The whole time I am facing the direction of my house and the lightning rods keep firing down right about where my house is (was?)
I get home and, well, I got home. It was there. There were a lot of weird things like motion lights that were stuck on and some (but not all) clocks blinking. It appeared as if lightning struck nearby and messed up some stuff (and set off the heat sensor, triggering the ADT call), but the house was most definitely not burned down.
Whew.
Now that I knew that most largest treasures were intact, I quickly raced back to Jackie’s to reclaim my other treasures. Nobody there busted my balls about leaving and I was still fully qualified to win my prize. It was 9:30 and ARH and I played for 1 more hour. We actually tangled up in a hand where he doubled up through me. I also struggled in a few spots with other people, but I walked out of there with my high hand jackpot (ended up being $124), a profit on the game, and….and…AND…a Jackie’s T-shirt that they give to all royal flush all-Americans like yours truly. Now I have 2 cardroom T-shirts: One from Jackie’s and one from the Friendship Social Club. The latter I got with a King-high straight flush in a $3-$6 limit game. The former I got on a night when I thought I had lost everything I owned except that shirt and a few hundred bucks.
I could have ended tonight homeless, but I ended it Johnny Royale.
