Playing The Board

Passage 1 from Playing the Board: Lost in my overwhelming agony, it never dawns on me that the police car doesn’t pull over behind me. I take my hands from over my eyes and out of my lap, to see no blinding blue lights in my rear view mirror. The trooper’s car is nowhere to be found. I search in every direction and my heart slowly starts to beat again. I make a sage decision that home is the best place for me in my inebriated, half-naked condition. I pull back into the driveway that I left only a short time ago, and see a huge black SUV in my parking place. “Oh no, not another visitor! Who could possibly want to pay their condolences at this hour?” I grumble to myself. I peek at the clock on the dashboard and the numbers read nine P.M. I park alongside and inspect the vehicle to find, to my amazement, that no one is inside. My nerves aren’t ready for any more excitement for a while, and this unfamiliar SUV doesn’t seem promising. I walk around the hood of the truck reflecting sadly, “First the funeral, then the cops, and now I’m being robbed. The trifecta of the worst day in recorded history.” Passage 2: I peek at my cards in the big blind and find pocket deuces. The table plays tight, as usual, and folds around to the button. Without saying a word he taps his purple chip on the felt repeatedly and raises the pot to five hundred. The small blind bows out and since I have already committed two hundred in the hand I call. The flop comes 2(D), 3(D), 5(D). With my set in hand, I calmly check, as does my foe. The turn is the KD and this scares me but I try not to show it. I bet five hundred as a feeler bet to see where the other player stands in the hand and to read his facial expression. He looks at me for a second and then looks down at his chips and calls the five hundred dollar bet. This worries me even more; he looked down at his chips as if he was going to raise and instead of raising, he only called my bet. It’s my educated guess that he is holding the A(D) and is trying to set a trap with his nut flush. The question for me to figure out is, do I believe him? I go through all the options, but what makes it difficult is that the whole table folded to him and he may have been trying to steal the blinds. After deliberation, I conclude he has the A(D) and an off card that doesn’t help. The dealer discards the top card and launches the 2(C) for the river. I’ve made quads, holy crap! I hope my body hasn’t given away my hand. I’m smiling so much on the inside; my outside may have turned on me also.