I pointed to Stan. “He’s the God of Poker and that’s Laverne, Lady Luck herself.”
He started to say something, then stopped. “If I hadn’t just been teleported here, I would be laughing.”
“Don’t blame you,” I said.
I glanced at Laverne. “I assume he’s not going to remember any of this?”
“This side timeline will vanish when we return,” Laverne said. “And Doc, we would like to apologize for the worry. Your mother will be fine and not remember any of this either.”
“And that’s why I had no memory of it,” I said.
“We’ll remember it now,” Stan said. “It happened in our timeline in 2014.”
“Now that makes sense,” I said. “But why bring Doc here?”
“We have a lot of the gods interested in this match between you two,” Laverne said.
I laughed. “Of course they are. But no nasty problems over the outcome?”
“Nothing,” Laverne said. “But there are a lot of bets among gods.”
“Which way are the odds?” I asked.
Laverne laughed. “Since they have discovered it’s actually you, Poker Boy, playing the match, the odds have tightened up. They are now two-to-one.”
“That I win?” I asked.
Laverne shook her head. “That Doc kicks your ass.”
Now it was my turn to feel stunned and Patty and Stan both laughed. Even Doc smiled.
I looked at him. “You up for a match?’
He smiled and shrugged. “Why not? No limit hold’em, heads-up, best of five matches. No superpowers or whatever you have.”
“No powers beyond normal poker player powers,” I said.
He nodded and I shook his hand, agreeing to the match. “You ready?”
“Any time,” he said.
Laverne smiled and jumped us to a private room on the second floor of Binion’s Horseshoe Casino.
I was in heaven. I got to play the best poker player in the world heads-up. It didn’t get any better than this, even if I had to travel back in time 15 years to do it.
Now the key was to not make a fool of myself.
EIGHT
THE ROOM WE WERE IN had high ceilings and was mostly used by the casino as a banquet room I was sure, with the red felt wallpaper of old casinos and polished wood pillars. The poker table we were to play at was square in the middle of the room under a bright light. On three sides were grandstands ten seats high, making the table feel like it was in the bottom of a pit.
A male dealer with a Binion’s uniform sat at the table, the cards spread out in front of him as was standard. There were no chips in his tray, but two stacks of chips were in positions facing each other down the length of the table.
Patty kissed me for luck, then she and Stan and Lady Luck moved over to the stands and sat down near the middle. The rest of the stands were empty at the moment.
“So that really is Lady Luck?” Doc asked, standing there beside me next to the table, clearly trying to get his footing.
I was amazed he wasn’t just sitting in a chair with his head in his hands. Clearly the guy was as good as dealing with pressure and unusual circumstances as people said he was. It didn’t come any more unusual than this.
“It is,” I said.
“Is she going to help you then?”
I laughed. “Even if she could, she wouldn’t. Luck is a natural force in the world. She’s the god of that force. She’ll just let it run its natural course and make sure, at the same time, no one else interferes.”
Doc nodded. Then he turned to face me. “How about a side bet?”
I looked at him and shook my head. “Lady Luck won’t let you remember any of this.”
He waved his hand. “Trust me, I don’t want to.”
“So what kind of bet are you thinking of.”
He looked at me with those intense brown eyes and suntanned face. “You look a little pale. I assume I’m still running the rivers in Idaho in 2014.”
“You are,” I said.
“If I win,” Doc said, “since you’ll remember this, you and your girlfriend book a raft trip with me.”
Even though I hated the very idea, I had to act brave. I motioned for Patty to come over and told her the idea.
She just laughed and said she would make sure I held up my end of the deal if I lost. She would love to go on a raft trip into the Idaho Primitive Area.
I, on the other hand, was more scared of that idea than facing the alien snake that had screwed up the Garden of Eden.
“And if I win,” I asked.
Doc Hill just smiled. “You’ll always know you beat the best tournament player in the world at his own game.”
Patty laughed. “And I thought Poker Boy had an ego when it came to cards. Does that come with being a poker player?”
Both Doc and I said at the same time, “It does.”
NINE
ROUND ONE:
The rules were pretty simple in heads-up No-Limit Hold’em. We both started with the same amount of chips, in this case $500,000. The chips were in denominations of one thousand, five thousand, and twenty-five thousand.
When one person had the full million and the other player had no chips, the round was over.
Winner of the best of five rounds won the match.
The blinds were one thousand for the small blind and two thousand for the large blind.
In Hold’em, there was a dealer’s button, which was the position that always got to bet last after the first round. In heads-up, the dealer button was under the small blind and before the flop (first three cards) the small blind had to act first.
After the flop the other player had to act first.
Position from that button was critical in all Hold’em poker, even more so in heads-up play.
So I shook Doc’s hand, tried to clear out the idea of going into the Idaho Primitive area, and we sat down facing each other.
Again, the young poker player in me came screaming back in, all happy and excited. I was actually facing the best poker player on the planet in a private match. It didn’t get any better than this.
Doc drew the button first and I tossed out my big blind of two thousand and he put a one thousand dollar chip on top of the button. A half million might seem like a lot of money, but in this game it wouldn’t last long.
The dealer, a middle-aged man who clearly worked for the gods somewhere, shuffled the cards, tapped the table and asked, “Ready, gentleman?”
We both said we were
As he shuffled, the grandstands around us filled.
I saw some gods I knew and a few hundred I didn’t. An older guy with a long white beard was now sitting next to Laverne. I guessed that was Chronos.
On the other side of him was a younger guy I assumed was his son, Tock. Beside him was Bernice, dressed to kill and with larger breasts than I remembered. But she had a very sour look on her classically-beautiful face and kept brushing Tock’s hand off her leg.
That was going to be a very short-lived relationship.
I looked at Doc, who had his mouth open and was just staring.
“Better to not ask and just forget,” I said.
He swallowed hard and looked back at me, nodding.
He had to call the bet first. He glanced at his two cards and folded.
We exchanged blinds for the next few hands and I could sense that Doc Hill was slowly starting to get his feet under him.
On his third big blind I raised him and he folded.
He called with his next small blind, I raised him, and he folded again.
I wasn’t even really looking at my cards. I just needed to build up a little cushion while he was off balance. But I had no doubt that advantage wouldn’t last long.
I took two more of his hands before he finally decided to fight back with a medium-sized raise of twenty-five thousand.
I happened to have two eights in my hand, a fantastic hand in heads-up, so I re-raised him four times his bet, shoving o
ut one-hundred thousand.
He cold called.
The flop showed another eight. Plus an ace and a deuce, all colors.
I checked my set, hoping to trap him. What I really hoped was that he had an ace in his hand.
He bet one-hundred thousand.
I raised, pushing my entire stack in.
He had no choice, since I assumed he had hit his ace. He would be crippled if he lost that hand.
He shook his head, knowing what happened as he called. My three eights stood up against his pair of aces.
First round to me.
And around us the gods applauded.
TEN
ROUND TWO:
As I had been afraid would happen, Doc Hill finally got his feet under him and ignored the strange people sitting all around us.
He came after me at the start of the second round like a mother trying to protect her child and I was the attacker.
He raised every hand to ten thousand. That was a small raise, but still effective at chewing up a stack of chips.
My chips.
And when I raised him on the third hand, he just re-raised back, forcing me to fold like a bad cliché about wet paper.
I flat called two of his raises in the first ten hands and had to fold into his betting pressure because the flop had missed my cards entirely.
In No-Limit Hold’em, aggressive action tended to win more than it lost. I could be aggressive with the best of them, but after those first ten hands of Round Two, I felt I had been pushed through a buzz saw and cut down to size. He handled me like I handled a low-level player.
And I hated that feeling.
Once the momentum of aggression was set, it was damn hard to shut it off. I knew that from experience.
I had about three hundred thousand left, not in panic mode, but close.
So I folded to his raises three more hands, then suddenly re-raised him one hundred thousand, letting him think I had a decent hand for the first time. I actually had a jack-nine off-suit. Not horrible, but not bad for this kind of game.
He didn’t even blink. He re-raised me by shoving all in.
If I folded, my two-hundred thousand against his eight-hundred thousand would be like throwing chum in a tank full of sharks. He would chew it up in a matter of minutes.
My best bet right now was to ride the hand with my jack-nine. If it won, I was back in the round.
I called and he flipped over queen-six off-suit.
His hand was slightly better statistically.
But not by that much.
And then on the flop he hit his second queen and Round Two went to him with the Gods again applauding.
ELEVEN
ROUND THREE:
Doc came out aggressive again in the third round and this time I fired right back, matching aggressive move with aggressive move.
On the fourth hand I finally got him to lay a hand down with a two-hundred thousand raise.
As the dealer shuffled, Doc smiled at me and nodded. “Tough to stop a steamroller, isn’t it? Well done.”
“And to you as well,” I said. “And thanks again for doing this.”
“Are you kidding?” he asked. “Getting to play against a player at your level is something I don’t get to do very often.”
“This is fun, isn’t it?” I asked as the dealer dealt out our cards.
“As fun as having you and Patty in whitewater rapids with me.”
He smiled at me.
I shuddered.
From the nearby stands I heard Patty laugh.
And then Doc raised before I had time to even get my mind out of the terror of an Idaho Wilderness trip.
Four hands later, we were still about even in chips. Doc glanced at his cards and flat called my big blind.
I looked down at my two hole cards. I had an Ace-King of hearts, nicknamed “A Big Slick.” That was one of the most powerful hands in all of poker, especially heads-up. It wasn’t a made hand, but it was powerful.
So hoping to get Doc betting and trap him, I just checked and we went to the flop.
The flop came ace, ten, four. The four was a heart.
I had a pair of aces. In heads-up it didn’t come any more powerful.
Doc would expect me to bet into that flop since we were playing aggressive poker, so I did, making the bet fifty thousand. I wanted him to think I was over-betting it to take the blinds.
He thought for a moment and called.
I had no idea why he called. Maybe he had a small pair, maybe he just figured I had nothing.
Or maybe he had an ace as well.
The next card came a six of hearts.
I checked. My check forced him into betting to get me out of the pot. He bet a smooth one-hundred thousand.
I called and he looked up at me, trying to get a read on me.
I could read nothing from him.
Nothing.
The next card came ten of hearts. So I had the best flush possible.
I bet out exactly the size of his last bet. One-hundred thousand.
He pushed all in.
I called.
He rolled over a pair of aces for aces full over tens.
I didn’t show him my flush.
Round three to Doc.
The audience of Gods applauded.
I was down two rounds to one against the best poker player on the planet. This was not looking good for me staying off a raft in the middle of a river.
TWELVE
ROUND FOUR:
For almost a half hour, Doc and I exchanged raises and folds at the start of the new round, ending up pretty close to where we started.
That’s a very long time for no one to make a move in no-limit heads-up poker.
I just couldn’t find a weakness anywhere in his game. And he seemed to be in my head more than I was in his.
The way he trapped me with those aces in the last round was masterful. So while I thought I was trapping him, he had me already at a huge disadvantage.
So after thirty minutes, I figured that the best way to play him in this fourth round was just to do what he did to me in the second round.
I just stared raising everything, and re-raising him on his raises.
I could see he knew what I was doing and was just waiting to be dealt some decent cards to make me pay.
If I had a chance at all, I needed to get him doubting he had a read on me.
So as my chips passed six hundred thousand, he raised. If I followed my pattern, I would re-raise him.
Instead I just tossed the cards in the muck.
He looked up at me, surprised.
He had a hand and was about to teach me a lesson. My folding gave him pause.
He leaned forward slightly as the dealer shuffled. “Bring a suit for swimming in the river and a heavy coat for the nights around the campfire.”
He sat back, smiling at me.
Again I heard Patty laugh.
There were a lot of weapons in poker and Doc Hill was showing me how to blatantly use them all. Time for me to play that same game a little.
“I will,” I said, smiling back. “I’m just glad we’re not playing to save the entire world as we were planning to do.”
He tried to keep the smile on his face.
Again the wonderful laugh of my girlfriend got to my ears.
After a moment Doc glanced at the audience, then back at his cards.
I raised and he folded, muttering something about “Well-played.”
I went back to being aggressive, slowly chipping away at his chips.
Then he cold-called one of my raises.
I had king-ten off-suit. The flop missed me completely.
I raised fifty thousand.
He again flat called like a beginner would do against a raise.
The turn card missed me as well.
I checked.
He checked.
Again a beginner play. But I knew for a fact I didn’t have him that rattled.
The river ca
rd also missed my two cards. I had King high.
I checked.
He checked.
I rolled over my king.
He rolled over an ace and took the pot.
And suddenly we were back to almost even.
Doc Hill turned back into a buzz saw, raising and re-raising everything.
I had to fold just about everything for six hands as he took the chip lead.
Then as he raised, I glanced down and saw a pair of tens. Great hand in heads-up.
I re-raised him with one hundred thousand.
He re-raised me all in.
I called.
He had more chips than I did, so my entire tournament life was on the line.
I rolled over my tens.
Doc nodded and rolled over ace-jack.
This was called “A Race” because the statistical odds were pretty even going into the flop, especially when you take into account the straight possibilities.
Everyone in the audience knew it might be over and they were all standing.
Doc stayed seated.
I stayed seated.
There was an ace on the flop.
The odds of my surviving went to very small. I could only win if one of the other two tens came out of the deck.
They did not.
I lost the fourth round.
And the match.
All the Gods applauded and then vanished as I stood to shake Doc’s hand.
The entire thing had taken just under two hours.
And even though I had lost, I had enjoyed those two hours more than I wanted to admit.
“That was great fun,” Doc said, shaking my hand.
“It really was,” I said. “Thanks for taking part.”
“My pleasure,” Doc said, “even though I’m not going to remember it. See you on the river in about fifteen years.”
“We’ll be there,” Patty said, coming over and taking my arm.
With that Doc vanished.
Right behind him the room faded.
And then 1999 vanished.
THIRTEEN
Smith's Monthly #4 Page 3