Saturday night's alright, but Friday night works just as well

Good Times
Originally uploaded by JaseMan

"Don't give us none of your aggravation
We had it with your discipline
Saturday night's alright for fighting
Get a little action in"
- Saturday Night's Alright by Elton John & Bernie Taupin

Hear ye! Hear ye! You can get plenty of action on Friday nights as well if you play your cards right. I nearly got more than I bargained for last Friday at a friend's "friendly" poker game.

The email stated that the poker tournament would start around 8PM and would be winner-take-all. The game didn't start until 9ish and was morphed into two tables of winner-take-all at each table. No big deal. The crew was composed of a bunch of rookies and organizing the tournament would have been pretty difficult.

I should have seen the warning signs. One guy, we'll call him Cheech, started giving me shit about being a ringer just because I suggested an effective way to divvy up the chips. Clearly he's never seen me in action. I'm far from Phil Ivey, but Cheech didn't let it drop. I stayed put.

To top it off, I got dealt pocket sixes on the first hand. I limped and let the rookies dictate things pre-flop. I picked up a six on the flop and another on the turn. Nice. Solid bets, callable bets yielded some decent change on that pot, but I probably also didn't do myself any favors with Cheech.

Fast forwarding to 2AM finds me roughly even on the night after a bad beat and some lucky suck-outs from the rookie contingent. Cheech pushes his neatly arranged chips toward the guy nearest the chip/money tray and says, "Cash me out for $20. I have to take my pregnant wife home."

"Sorry, but you can't do that. It's winner-take-all," I said calmly as I didn't want to make a federal case out of this, but rules are rules. Plus, Cheech was good buddies with the host. Honestly, I didn't care, but I wanted him to know that he was breaking the rules.

"C'mon, man. It's 20 bucks, and my wife is pregnant."

"I've got no problem with it if you don't care about the rules."

It should be noted that the host and other friends of Cheech were telling him the same things as me. Rather than get pissed at himself for being a drunk idiot, he got pissed at me.

"Fine. I'm all in," says Cheech pushing his stack into the pot. He was first to act so the pot was $21.50 due the blinds. The next two players called and folded respectively.

A quick check of my hole cards revealed 6S 9S. Great - a horrible hand, but I called since I was embroiled in the confrontation. I put my cards down and pushed in my stack in one fluid motion proclaiming my all-in-ness. As I look up, I notice Cheech's beady eyes drilling holes through the back of my skull.

"What? Is there a TV back there?" I inquired.

Cheech made got up and took of his visor. Yeah. He was wearing a visor. Anyway, I guess he was trying to intimidate me by dragging his very solid, but less than intimidating, 5'7" 180 pound self out of the chair.

I guess he hadn't heard the story about Toups' roommate pointing a gun at me after our poker game, in which the roommate had participated, woke up his girlfriend. Oh, how I miss college.

Cheech didn't have a gun, but did look like he could break me. However, I am not one to get out meatheaded. I attempted to defuse the situation by calling him stupid. Fortunately for both of us, the host and posse intervened by re-focusing Cheech on the fact that we were playing out the hand and that he could kill me later if he saw fit.

The two guys behind me had folded and called leaving four of us in on the pot which now totaled about $40. All four of us flipped our cards. Cheech showed pocket sevens. The other guys had some sort of face cards with shitty kicker, and I had my suited sex trick.

The flop came up. The only card I could see was a seven. The jackass hit a set on the flop. I started laughing my ass off. Cheech yelled something like, "Shit! Now I can't leave." Wrong.

The pregnant lady had gotten up off of the couch during our little ruckus and had been watching the entire ordeal.
She must have given him some sort of sign that only he could see or whistled some sort of siren song. In any case, it was clear that they were leaving.

The host tried to pay Cheech his 40 bones, but the elation of winning must have snapped him out of his stupid ass trance. He declined the cash and apologized to everyone at the table - including me.

He felt like an idiot. He probably felt like a bigger idiot since now he was leaving $40 on the table instead of $20.
But at least his pregnant wife wasn't about to killing him or send him out for ice cream in the middle of the night.

Here's to you, Cheech. It was a rough night for all of his. I just hope you bring your weakass game to a poker table near me soon. Daddy needs some new shrubs at the crib.