I suck

Tonight I went to the Tropicana for the opening day of its new poker room, about which I'll have more to say later.

After a while the game dried up, so I went next door to Hooters, where, if there is a game, there are bad players. The first time I had the button, it was folded to me with K-T offsuit. I raised to $13. The blinds both folded. The under-the-gun straddler looked at his cards, looked at me, grabbed about half of his chip stack without counting, and slammed it rather forcibly in front of him--$50 or so.

I had essentially no information on him--which, I'll admit, was probably reason enough all by itself to let this one go. But something about his demeanor suggested to me that his thought process was, roughly, "I see you trying to steal the blinds and my straddle. You don't need a real hand to do that from the button when everybody folds to you. I think you got nuthin', so take THAT!" I put him on a medium pocket pair, at best.

I wasn't going to be intimidated by his bluster. I announced all in--and his chips literally beat mine into the pot. Ruh-roh. He quickly flipped over pocket kings. Hmmm. Might need to get my opponent-reading radar into the shop for a little tuneup.

I was only 9% to win; he was 90%, making me a 10:1 dog. This is literally just about the worst possible all-in pre-flop situation one can be in, mathematically.

I sheepishly turned over my pathetic little K-T and said, "I think it's going to be hard to beat you with this."

Well, apparently not as hard as I thought. Flop: J-Q-4, giving me an open-ended straight draw. The other guy admonished the dealer, "Don't you do it to me!"

Turn: 9. Boom!

Now he was the one needing help--a ten for a chopped pot.

River: 7.

Hilarity ensued, naturally.

Remember back in 1992 when Ross Perot was running for president, largely on an anti-free-trade platform? One of his favorite lines was saying that if NAFTA passed, we would hear a "giant sucking sound" as all our manufacturing jobs moved south across the border.

If you heard a giant sucking sound tonight, chances are that it was emanating from the Hooters poker room.