The Day Doyle Brunson Lived

This past July 4th, my brother (Bubba), Cameltoes, Big R (formerly known as R), and Cameltoes' brother and I all made the journey to Lake Charles, LA to hit the boats and play some 3-6-12 Texas Hold 'em. I don't know how many of ya'll are familar w/shoddy brick and mortar casinos, but the play there is absouletly horrific. By the same token, the game is very hard to beat. Example: even with a UTG raise, 6-8 people routinely call to anxiously await the next 3 cards and suckout on the guy bluffing with his AA. So needless to say, the game can be a little difficult to beat, seeing as there is a schooling effect going on with the fishies*.

It is in this setting that I had the following happen to me. After seeing a never-ending string of 83os, J2os, 95os, for what would literally be an hour and a half, I finally got a streak of good cards. I managed to take down some nice sized pots in about a half an hour. Now, the worst hand I showed down was AJos. You'd think that people would pay attention, but they mindlessly called 2 bets cold with their Ace-rag and wonder why they were going home broke. It was about 3 A.M. and I had been playing for about 6 or 7 hours at this point and I was seriously thinking about quitting because the waitresses in Lake Charles have much to be desired and the Miller Lites and Crown shots were starting to take their toll on me.

I was one off the button and I look down and see T2 of clubs. At first I thought, "Not again." but then and the ENTIRE TABLE CALLED I thought that I'd get a little frisky and raise it. As John Vorhaus says, "Loose raise good, loose call bad." Only 1 person folds. So we have 9 people calling to see the flop of Ts2h2s. I almost did a cartwheel into a triple-reverse-backflip when I saw the board. Someone in MP bets. a few people call, and I smooth call. I think about 5 or 6 people saw the flop. The turn is a Ks, completing the flush. I'm praying that somebody's made their flush. The BB bets out and I figure that it's now or never, so I raise. When what to my wondering ears hear, but the button say, "Reraise". I swear my jaw almost dropped. The BB calls, and I cap it. Three of us see the river which was a brick (I don't even remember because I was freakin' out at this point. I mean, come on, I flopped a boat with the Doyle). The BB wisely checked, I bet $12, the button raises, and the BB folds. I look over and realize that the button's all in.....damn. He flips over AsQs for the nut flush and I show the crowd my dazzling T2. I took down a monster pot, which put me ahead $85. I decided after being down for 99% of the night, to call it there. I racked up and cashed out, smiling knowing that I had just won with that crap. Ah, Justice was served that day. After an entire session of suckout, after suckout I thought I was due. You be the judge.

And that kids, is how the Doyle Brunson lives on. Keep on keepin' on.

* David Sklansky has a theory when a bunch of fishies are playing limit Hold 'em, any one of them may not have the proper odds to call a bet, but with multiple fishies in the hand, they "school" together to combine their outs. That is, any one of them is likely to win the hand by hitting one of the combined cards to improve. So the poor players combine to beat the ever living crap outta the good player(s) at the table just by being stupid. Makes you think about playing Rockets again, doesn't it?