Originally Posted 4/4/05:
First, let’s start off with the totally absurd, The Casino Oscars.
Last night my buddy called me up and told me it was guy’s day/night at his place. We were going to watch the Yankees vs. Red Sox game, drink beers, and pig out. Right as I’m about to head up to his place he calls and asks me to bring my poker chips. None of these guys are serious players and it’s mostly a $20 buy-in type event but I always enjoy the action since I’ve known some of these cats since high school and we don’t get to see each other as often as I would like.
After the baseball game ended (or effectively ended at 6 – 1 in the 8th) and a couple of orbits around the poker table my friend’s wife gets home with the kids. His 9 year old son starts watching and when one of the guys has to take off early the kid sits down and his dad gives him some chips to play with. Right off the bat the kid gets bad beated, trip fours get spanked by a full house but it’s funny because the kid is playing seriously. He’s got his poker face on and he thinks long and hard about his moves. He’s got the balls to re-raise and realizes that he might be in trouble when his raise gets called.
The kid ended up taking a pretty big stack and then one of the guys who had the rest of the live chips said, “Hey, tell you what, one hand, we push all our chips in and see who wins.” He’s got twice as many chips as the kid and even the kid recognizes he’s getting great odds on the bet and takes it. I don’t remember the exact cards but it was something like A8 (the kid) vs. KJ. A jack hits on the flop and the guy offers the kid a deal. He says that they can just split the pot right now or he can try to draw out and hit his ace. The kid thinks it over and takes the split. As the dealer, I peeked at the next few cards to come off and he got the best of it in that deal.
His mother later told me that he has a Sony PlayStation poker game that he plays all the time and he’s taken the neighborhood kids for some cash a few times. Gotta love poker 🙂