At some point in your childhood, someone, typically an older brother, found you watching cartoons or reading a comic book and held up a deck of cards between their fingers and thumb for you to see.
“Have you ever played 52 Pick Up?” they would ask.
“No,” you’d answer. “How do you play?”
And with a malicious grin, your antagonist would squeeze the deck. Cards would burst from their hand and fly at you like startled bats emerging from a cave.
You would shield your face with a forearm, then, when the brief barrage ceased, would stare at the mess on the floor.
The rules of the ‘game’ would be explained in a mocking voice. “There’s 52 cards. Pick them up.”
You were probably quite young at the time, open and happy in your innocence. This may have been your first lesson in the cruel nature of the world. Not that there wouldn’t be more. I’m willing to bet they’ve kept coming all through your adult life. In fact, if you play poker, I know they have.
Yesterday, I was given and took the opportunity to be the antagonist in a variation of 52 Pick Up. Ironically, the opportunity knocked in a Replay tournament dubbed Open Happiness.
With a 7500 chip entry fee, it was lower stakes than I usually play, but after a particularly brutal run over two days, I had decided a rehab stint in Triple A was in order.
Arriving late at the tournament, I was dealt an 85h in middle position for my first hand. UTG, along with +1 and +2 having folded, I decided to get jiggy with it, and raised half-pot. To my surprise, everyone, even the big blind folded.
This was a ray of sunshine breaking through overcast skies. I bluffed at one or two more pots, then took two or three down when people noticed I was running the table unchecked and challenged me.
After building my starting 2500 in chips to about 8800, the sun disappeared again. I lost two decent pots, one when my pair of queens were counterfeited by a better kicker, the other to a higher flush. My stack had abruptly dwindled to just over 4600 chips.
Knowing that the sight of any player losing consecutive showdowns only invited more callers, I put a temporary stay on any bluffs and speculative play to wait for a strong hand.
I went from big blind all the way around to under the gun with no love, then groaned at the sight of a 52 off in the next big blind.
Everyone from UTG to the button folded, however, and the small blind limped.
“Ooh,” I murmured to myself. “A free pot.”
I declined my option to raise, then watched the flop come 5-2-J.
Hello.
While I contemplated how to extract maximum profit from this windfall, the small blind made a min bet of 100 chips.
A jack? I wondered. That would be ideal. Hopefully not a better two pair, but the possibilities there were severely reduced by my hand.
Still, bottom two pair is not a hand with which to follow someone else’s lead. There’s a reason tiny dogs bark all the time. If they’re meek and quiet, they tend to get trampled.
Checking her stack, I saw she was sitting on just over ten grand. I raised with a 400-chip pot bet to see where I was.
She flat called, which didn’t tell me whether she was holding a jack with a weak kicker or slowplaying her two pair.
Worse, she min bet again, with a nine having landed on the turn.
I raised pot again.
She smooth called again.
It felt like a Lhasa apso being humored by a playful doberman.
I did not like the feeling.
To be fair, there wasn’t a useful range in which to place her. She could have had anything up to and including an over pair in the small blind, yet the only lethal possibilities I wasn’t blocking were JJ, 99, or J9.
Maybe it was sexist of me, but I felt more annoyed than concerned by her betting pattern. I knew she had something and I was clearly hooked. Why wasn’t she raising back? Gritting my teeth, I shoved.
She called again and showed aces.
This is why you don’t slowplay monsters, I said to myself as the river produced another five to move my rags into a nice full house.
“Nh,” she typed.
“Ty,” I sent back, finishing the sentiment with a silent ‘for not raising preflop’ before checking to see how many chips my 52 had picked up.
