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By Kyle Swanson I've met some classic characters during my poker travels.
That's one of the main attractions of hitting the road and trying out all the card rooms in an area, along with the sheer pleasure of letting the locals of many locales fund your excursions.
One thing I got tired of early on, however, was bad beat stories.
At first, bad beat stories were amusing, even informative, and I admit with the chagrin of hindsight that I may have told a few myself while starting out.
Fair enough.
We all get a grace period.
But really, folks, once you've played a couple hundred thousand hands, is there ever any excuse for relating yet another bad beat? All I'm saying is, unless your story involves not only a perfect-perfect catch on your ass by some total carp while all-in for your entire roll, and your wife gave birth that morning to triplets who look just like her ex (he moved to Lower Slobovia last week), but also includes you going home to find that her cat that you never liked has chewed through a lamp cord and started a fire that burned down your house while the insurance check you meant to send last week to meet yesterday's deadline is still sitting in your glovebox, and your boss calls as you're standing in the smoldering ruins of your living room - at least the phone still works, you think to yourself - and he says he just found out about you using your expense account for every lunch last week at the Rhino, and you're fired, and by the way he's suing you for embezzlement and just called the cops.I'm not heartless, I'll listen to that story But anything short of that? Forget it, pal.
You're going to get in the line that has saved me countless hours of others' misery morphing into mine.
The line that has saved me from many potentially painful eons at the table listening to some guy whom I could easily have discouraged.
The line that only once has been taken at face value.
The line? It goes like this: whenever I smell a bad beat story coming - and the stench is easily discernible after some experience - I simply say, "I'll gladly listen to your story for ten bucks." Then I pause, and add, "If it involves aces getting snapped on the river, it'll cost you twenty." People look at me wide-eyed, as if to say, "How dare you not listen to my incredibly lame and boring story of which you've heard thousands of variations thousands of times?" At which point I pleasantly add, in dulcet tones, "But for that money I will provide you with the level of sensitive listening that you no doubt feel your tale of woe deserves.
For an extra ten bucks I will commiserate wholeheartedly and offer my condolences in just such a manner as to suggest that I am truly moved by your misfortune, and agree that it is a tragedy singularly unlike all others in the annals of poker." I've gotten many laughs from that line, some deeply thankful glances from folks subjected to the offender for years at that very table, a lot of resentful glares, various action of various sorts, but only one taker.
Cut to the chase.
So I'm standing in the cash line at the Commerce after a decent night, wiped out and barely holding up four racks and change, ready to go straight to bed after twelve hours of insane gambling with the local maniacs.
It's late, there's only one cashier, and the guy in front of me is arguing with her about something, and she says, "I'll have them check the cameras, sir." I consider going around the barn to the other cage, when suddenly this guy who had been sitting at the other end of my 40-80 for the last few hours, playing weak-tight, which is death in that game, comes hang-dogging right up behind me with a handful of chips and an expression of pain and despair.
Before I can bolt, he looks me straight in the eye and says, "I just took the worst beat you've ever seen." I gaze at him and sigh.
"I'll be glad to listen to your bad beat story for ten dollars.
Experience has taught me that this is a fair sum for embracing what may turn out to be a deeply unsettling tale." I pause.
"Twenty for rockets." I decide to forgo the commiseration segment.
He looks at me for a second, eyes wide.
He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out, until he eyes me warily, decides I'm not bluffing, and for the first time ever I hear the words, "Alright, fair enough." He opens his hand and offers me a palm full of chips.
Too shocked and tired to think clearly, I take one, look at him warily and say, "Aces?" He looks disgusted.
"Uh huh." I sigh again and take another chip; he looks on resignedly, as if it was part of the pot he so tragically lost.
I'm beginning to want to renege; burned rockets always seem the most pointless tale of all.
There is only one appropriate response, especially at the ramjam festivals the Commerce so often provides: "Well, what did you expect? That your aces will always hold up in a capped seven-way pot?" But I just stand there, two chips in one hand and four racks in the other, tired and wishing I'd said no, and off he goes.
Herein lies the best part of this narrative.
The best part is, you don't have to deal with the bad beat story.
It was the usual poker version of Shakespearian tragedy, complete with various and sundry local Iagos, comical grave diggers, witches cackling and rubbing their hands around a bubbling pot, and of course, the requisite hubris of a forlorn hero whose only error was mistaking bullets for a bullet-proof vest.
You know the end already; toss in a five-way river with about forty big bets in the pot, and our hero escaping with only a few chips because he had two other guys gambling along at the end and couldn't get all-in in the frenzy of re-raising that often erupts in the besotted LA nights.
He almost seemed sad about that part, as if losing all his chips would have been more truly and properly just.
It occurs to me for the manymanyth time that the only guys who tell bad beat stories are those who just don't understand that poker works precisely because it is the sort of game where bad beats are essential.
They feel that justice has deserted them and them alone, but that when they suck out on someone, hey, it was a perfectly valid redraw! Nonetheless, I gave the guy his money's worth, nodding intently, shaking my head sadly, grimacing at the outrageous arrows slung his unfortunate way by the great unwashed of the poker world.
Just as he was getting to the river, the cashier opened up, and I said, "Hold on." He waited patiently as I made that lovely trade of plastic for paper and then walked down the hall beside me, so absorbed in his story that he moseyed into one of those beautiful and very realistic columns dotting the casino.
He just kind of bounced off, never missing a bad beat, and kept going on about the odds of a straight flush and four aces in one hand.
I was going to say that we are all the winners of a hundred million to one sperm shot during our first hand in the physical plane, count your blessings, but figured his Jackson earned him an irony-free response.
So I just kept walking out the lobby, past the guards, and towards my car, only a quarter mile away in the lot.
The bad-beatee never stopped.
He kept it up right until I opened my door and got in.
I closed it and opened the window as a Zeppelin bootleg fired up on the stereo.
He stopped and looked at me beseechingly.
"And there you go: my nightmare come to life." I turned Bonzo down and looked up at him.
I knew just how he felt, except for the first time ever my ongoing poker nightmare had actually paid me off on the river for dolefully confronting, yet again, the fact that I was living off of the idiocy of others, or, as some call it, playing professional poker.
I looked at the guy, forlorn and helpless as the sun peaked above the horizon and cast a smoggy orange glow on his harried countenance.
And I said the only thing you can say, really, to any bad beat story.
"Man!" I shrugged and shook my head.
"Bad beat!" -
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