Probability is For People With No Imagination

I know . . . $1 for the bad beat story. But this one is almost too good to believe.

Fortunately, as you know, your favorite (and only, I think) Mrs. Chako was just playing with the play money. But I usually play the 45 seat, 5 table tourney. The first hand or two is donkeys, but the rest of the time people generally play to win.

So I'm holding my own, but haven't made any headway, really. Which, as the players fall off the tables, means I'm losing ground in the chip stack war. However, in my next big blind, I wake up with pocket jacks.

Across the table from me, the short stack goes all-in. He's got about $400 in chips. It comes around to me and I raise to $800, which is 2/3 of my stack. There were a few limpers that I don't need sitting around with big cards. Everyone folds, and its the two of us, heads up.

He flips over pocket 7s. Whew. Flop is dealt and its A-J-10, all spades. I have trip jacks, but I'm clearly vulnerable to the spades, as one of his 7s is a spade. The turn card brings . . .

A seven. I snicker to myself, thinking how ironic it must feel for him to have gotten that, given that I already have my trips. As the river is about to be dealt, I'm thinking "I just have to dodge a spade, . . . or the case . . . "

You guessed it. River brought the 7. He went runner, runner to get quads and beat my flopped trips.

Not that if I was short-stacked I wouldn't have tried to get all in with my pocket pair either . . .

Probability . . . schmobability . . .

Respectfully submitted,

The Wife