Showdown: Deuce-Four versus Crubs

Bastin is in town. He is a long-time reader who also did me the great service of suggesting to Cardgrrl that she start reading this blog, which has had all sorts of subsequent lovely repercussions in my life. I finally met him a year ago on his last Vegas trip. I was, of course, eager to try to get some table time in with him before he disappears back to the Pacific Northwest for another orbit around the sun. He Tweeted that he would be at the Venetian at 8:00 tonight, so I got myself there, and almost immediately got seated at his table, moving to his side as soon as the opportunity arose.

I didn't know that C.K. was already there, too, at a different table. Soon enough she joined us for merriment. In case you don't know, C.K. is the one who taught me--and everybody else, for that matter--that crubs always get there.

What none of us knew was that the evening would prove to be an battle between the Mighty Deuce-Four and C.K.'s beloved crubs.*

No, not just a battle.

An epic battle.

EPIC.

I have to admit that every single time there were two crubs on the flop, a third one hit either the turn or river. Maybe something slipped by without me noticing, but it sure looked like a 100% performance for the crubs. Pretty impressive, I must confess. C.K. was blowing her secret crub whistle like the Pied Piper.

But the Deuce-Four was in fine form, too. First to wield it was actually Bastin, when he hit the second nuts on a 3-5-6 flop:

The board got scary past that point, as a second 6 hit the turn, and a really ugly third one came on the river. But his faith in the ol' 2x4 was justified. His opponent had been on just a straight draw and had no pair.

Well, the Grand Pooh-Bah of the Holy Order of the Sacred Deuce-Four can't let one of the acolytes conduct the whole service, now, can he? No! So I had to step up.

The next time it was dealt to me, I called a pre-flop raise to $12, following which the nice young man on my left reraised to $35. This was the first three-bet I had seen him do, and there was very little question in my mind that he had A-A, K-K, or possibly Q-Q. Surprisingly, two others (including the original raiser) called the reraise before action was back to me. This was it: Put up or shut up.

I put up, naturally, making the pot $140.

Flop: 4-4-8. Can I get an AMEN?!

I was third to act and put in the third check. I thought that the player on my left would make a decent-sized bet, because this flop would look extremely safe for an overpair, except that he would want to protect against the spade draw the flop had brought. I hoped that at least one of the others would call before it got back to me. I had $186 left at that point, and both the guy on my left and any callers would be pot-committed, and basically obligated to call the additional amount.

He did better than I expected: He shoved. He had me covered. The original raiser thought long and hard, appearing to be on the verge of calling, but finally mucked. (He later said that he had had Q-Q, which is perfectly believable.) I called, obviously.

When my opponent saw my cards, his first reaction was a disgusted, "You've got to be kidding me." But he quickly put his game face back on, and when no help for his K-K came, paid me off with no whining, and a polite "Nice hand." That $512 pot is definitely one of the largest scores the Deuce-Four has ever made for me. It might even be the second-largest.**

So that was me showing off to my friends what Deuce-Four is capable of.

But the Crubs were not about to concede this battle. (If they were, it wouldn't have been epic, would it?) Again, though, we had to look to Bastin rather than C.K. to really show them off in the most impressive way possible--a royal flush. He started with Kc-Tc, flopped two more parts of the royal, and turned the joint. Sadly, he couldn't get his opponent--the loosest cannon at the table--to pay off even a min-raise on the river before showing off what he had done. I tried to take a picture of it, but the dealer was a little too quick scooping up the cards, and I ended up with just a pathetic blur.

Thus the showdown was, by itself, inconclusive and subject to argument and interpretation. Deuce-Four won a bigger pot than crubs, but if you were to add up all the pots won with crubs during the time the three of us were at the table together--including, of course, the royal flush--it might well total more than the sum of my monster pot plus the one Bastin took with his flopped straight.

I'm going to be a gentleman and call it a draw.

*Occasionally the crubs are "stupid," but usually beloved.

**The biggest, I'm sure, was this one, though that was back at a time when I tended not to mention specific dollar amounts in telling my stories. I think, though, that that pot was in the $800 range. If you go back and read that post, you should be aware that that was also a time when I was just beginning to sense the power of the Deuce-Four, so my tone toward it was insufficiently reverential, I now recognize.