Poker Shenanigans

This isn't a Bad Beat Story, just a Holy-Shit-WTF? Beat Story.

I'm in early position playing 25c/50c NL Hold 'em at a buddy's house. I had showed up really late, and the table already had a lot of money on it for being such small stakes. The average stack is probably about $150. I've been playing for maybe an hour. I had originally bought in for $40 and am at about $75 or so at this point.

I'm first to act, and I look down at the King of Spades and the King of Clubs. Sweet! This table is playing pretty loose, but I haven't played a lot of hands so I'm not sure how much to bet to get just a *little* action. I don't want everyone on the table in on this hand. I've seen some horrendous suck-outs already. But I also don't want to just take down 75c in blinds either. I decide to raise to $5. Fold. Fold. Fold. Shit! There goes my action! Then a guy I've never seen at our games before announces a raise.

Now I've been watching 2 new guys at the table fold almost the entire time I've been here. This guys is one of them. Up until this point, he's been playing very passively so this raise definitely has my attention. He throws out a $5 chip to call and then reaches back for a $10 stack of ones and places it next to his $5 call. Then... he reaches back for more. "Whoa! That's enough," says the dealer, correctly stopping him from string betting. The guy looks confused. "I said 'Raise'," he protested. After the entire table explains Poker 101 to the guy, he begrudgingly returns the additional stack of $10 back to his chipstack.

Fold. Fold. Then I here, "All In!" You'll never guess from who... the *other* new guy that hasn't played any hands in the last hour. Great. These two guys sit and fold for over and hour. I get pocket kings, raise to $5 and now they're going nuts on me. I look at this guy's stack, he only has around $35. He's actually the small stack at the table. Fold. Fold. Fold around back to me. I look back down at my Kings. I mean, can I really fold this? No, I certainly can't fold KK for $35. Maybe Mr. Short Stack has something like a mid pair or a Suited Ace, and he saw a little bit of money out there so he decided to just push. Oh, well, fuck it. "I'm all in too," I announce.

New Guy #1 grimaces and shows his hole cards to his neighbor. Even though he shouldn't, his neighbor visibly dismisses New Guy #1's concern. New Guy #1 calls. Well, I can only hope New Guy #1 has QQ and feels committed, but I'm doubtful of that. There's no way he would have raised me and then called two all-ins with less.

Mr. Short Stack flips over the King of Diamonds and the King of Hearts. FUCK. That's gotta mean New Guy #1 has AA. Sure enough. New Guy #1 shows the Ace of Diamonds and the Ace of Hearts. Goddammit! This is so fucking lame. Well, I guess at least I have flush outs. Mr.Short Stack doesn't even have that as his Kings share the same suits as the New Guy #1's Aces. I'm about 3% to win and 1% to tie.

Wow. Make that 0% to win. The flop comes out three non-straightable diamonds. The turn is an Ace, but it doesn't matter. It's like twisting the knife in your oppoents heart after he's already dead. To be honest, I don't recall what the river card was, but it doesn't matter. That hand sucked.

Don't feel too bad for me though. I rebought, and about 3 hands later I had 88 with a flop of 866. I more than doubled up and left up for the night. That's poker.