"One time, baby!" I scream before the dealer peels the river card. "YESSS!" I pump my fist triumphantly at the nine-of-hearts, jumping out of my seat and knocking over a side table with an errant elbow. A small crowd of onlookers in the mammoth 300+ table poker warehouse quickly gather around to witness the holy grail of the Commerce Casino: the bad beat jackpot.
The hand has all the ingredients of the hallowed 150K prize. 7:20AM on a Wednesday afternoon. 3-6 donkey limit hold'em table. The tail end of a 14-hour session features a typical hand of the evening(morning?): an under the gun straddle followed by a consecutive blind three-bet. The preflop action is capped after the dealer gently taps a snoozing 80-year old Filipino grandmother in seat one.
"How much?" she asks, half awake.
"It's three bets to you, Ma'am."
"Cappucino." she declares in a thick accent, peppering the pot with chips.
The onlookers and railbirds praying for a handout quickly disperse as the dealers scoops a monster $120 pot my way. My K-J of diamonds has survived a 9s-Ks-2s-Ah-9h board. I could care less that my second pair defeating a pair of deuces (who knows what the third caller could've had on this board) is a bajillion miles from sniffing the bad beat jackpot. My time has finally come.
That's when it dawns on me. I am a fish.
One year removed from crushing 20-40 (6max) online and 40-80 ring games at the Commerce I find myself in the poker purgatory of low limit hold 'em. A bottomless pit of bored tourists, senior citizens, and Prada toting wives are foaming at the mouths for my last $52. Fortunately, I battle back to $220 to end the marathon session. Still, my epiphany from earlier is like a rabid Doberman gnawing at my jerky-flavored ankles.
How did it come to this? How did I become a fish?
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