The Big Hand

No limit Texas hold'em. I’m on the big blind, and the chip leader at the table (but not by too much). Hands fold around to a short stack on my left. Desperate to double up, or at least steal some blinds, she goes all in. Table folds around to an aggressive player with a medium sized stack, he calls her and goes all in himself- hoping to scare me off my blind. I dally a bit, make sure to check my cards a few times during all of the betting and folding to make it look like I’m not too thrilled. But it comes around, and I call. All of short stack’s money, all of aggressive’s money. I’m sitting fat enough that with a losing hand I’d still have a bit left over- though it’d hurt to have one of them double up on me. With a big fat pot at stake and all possible bets made, we turn our cards up: short stack has a pair of 7’s, aggressive has jacks, and I. . . I show off my darling pocket aces. Still, I sweat. With five cards to come anyone could catch a third card, and their set would beat my pair. But flop, turn, river- no help for anyone. That’s good news for me, I dont need any help. I take it all down, short stack’s chips, aggressive’s cash- I’ve won the battle of the pocket pairs. Eventually I went into a great heads up, a battle of the brides- and won the whole damn thing. What’s better than winning a great hand, even if it was largely on luck? Than taking the whole thing even though I’ve only been playing seriously for a few months? It’s the lingo my friends, gotta love a pastime with it’s own delicious lingo. Now I just need to perfect my gangster mol voice, and I’ll be ready for Vegas. . .