I Sucked Out to Beat Phil Hellmuth with a Runner-Runner Straight; and Then I Bitch-Slapped Him in Front of His Own Mother. (397 hits)
Category: SportsRating: 2 on 7 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by beeltea (View user info) at 2007-11-26 03:23:40 EST
So every Thanksgiving; after my family and I are finished with all of the turkey and pie we can eat, and we've had about all the conversation between ourselves that we can possibly stand (usually about ten minutes after our mouths are no longer occupied with food); we start to play a little cards. This is the way it has been since early in my childhood and this is the way that it remains to this very day. Before I was even fully potty-trained I could tell the difference between a heart and a spade, and before I could speak in a complete coherent sentence I was learning the art of gin, hearts, spades, bridge, pinochle, euchre; you name it... somebody always needed a fourth. Often times during my childhood I was criticized quite harshly for my performance in these games, as in one case I remember when I played the wrong card during a tight game of spades. I was partnered up with my uncle Jerry against my father and my older brother.
"Are you an idiot?" My uncle said to me, after what I thought was a reasonable play.
"What?" I answered, bewildered. I thought I had played the best card I could.
"Didn't you see that I was out of diamonds? Why didn't you play a diamond? You do have diamonds, right?"
"Uhhh... yeah..." I stammered.
My brother quickly came to my defense. "Oh, take it easy, Jerry. He's only seven."
"Easy for you to say, you just took the lead!" Jerry quickly turned to my father. "I'm sorry Roy, but your son must be a god-damn retard to lead like that." His wrath focused back on me. "I could have trumped that trick. Now we're going to go set. What is your problem? Do you not understand the game?"
"Daddy!" I cried. "Uncle Jerry is being mean to me!"
"Well, Maybe if you tried counting the cards a little better and he wouldn't have to be so mean, son."
Nice consolation, dad. My uncle was still steaming.
"What a God-damn retard. Maybe we should play Go Fish; is that a little bit more your speed? Or I know, how about we play real go fish; as in go find one by jumping in a fucking lake, you stupid little jackass." He turned back to my dad. "We're playing hearts from now on, Roy, unless of course you wanna partner up with this cretin. God damn it, kid. Go fetch me that bottle of Wild Turkey, and on the way why don't you THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU JUST DID."
My uncle Jerry was an alcoholic.
So sure, I come from a fairly competetive family. Tough love or something, I guess. Now that I'm an adult the family has grown in number quite a bit; with all of my brothers and sisters being married. Now the only card game we can all play together is poker. We all put in twenty bucks or so and play a winner takes all no-limit hold 'em game.
Now I'm not bragging or anything, but I consider myself a pretty good poker player. I was raised playing cards, and when I play house games with my friends or even against strangers in casinos I generally come out ahead; but keep in mind I'm the baby of the family so almost everybody I play against in these "family games" has more experience than I. Even though I usually play a decent game and can generally manage to make myself look respectable; I usually end up losing to either my dad or one of my siblings before all is said and done. This particular game was a really large gathering requiring two tables. The competition was my mother and father, my brothers and sisters (blood and in-law), a few nephews and nieces, and of course my uncle Phil.
Now Phil isn't really my uncle, he's some sort of a cousin to one of my in-laws so I really don't know what to call him, but I certainly wouldn't call him a friend because frankly, I don't really like the guy. In fact, I don't think anybody in our family really likes him, but my sister-in-law felt sorry for him (and his mother happens to make a friggin' AWESOME lime green jello) so he and his mother (who he lived with) were invited over for our annual Pilgrims 'n Indians Day pig-out. Phil's mother (in contrast to her son) was a remarkably sweet old lady; but having no interest in playing cards retired to the to the parlor for a little tea and conversation.
"Well, I have no interest in cards, dear-hearts. I think I'll retire to the parlor for a little tea and conversation." She said; and off she went into the living room with the other non-players; my aunt and my grandmother; to knit afghans or talk about cats or have a KY wrestling match or whatever it is old ladies do when they get together and nobody else is watching.
Then the dealing began. Phil was actually a fairly decent card player, and combining his skill with the rest of the experience at the table made for anything but a friendly game. I was facing long odds to finish first in this "winner takes all" deathmatch, but I started off strong and lucky, drawing out an incredible two to six diamond straight flush on the third hand of the game which took my sister out. Not a bad start.
"What a lucky hand." Phil remarked in that annoying nerdy nasally high-pitched voice of his. "She really outplayed you, you know. You shouldn't have won that, you know."
Phil had an irritating way of repeating himself.
Whatever, I thought. I was off to a good start; one player down and there I was doubled up; so Phil could really suck my balls as far as I was concerned.
I sat there with my nice stack playing extremely conservative for a while, letting my father take out some players, including a partially retarded nephew of mine who always begs to play, and believe me, we try and explain the rules to him but he just never quite gets them down.
"I have five cards all the same color! I frush to win!" he exclaimed as he jumped up and down in excitement.
My brother Wade gave Fred the bad news. "No Frederick, they need to be the same suit, remember? Not just the same color. We told you that at the beginning of the game. We told you that at the beginning of last game, too."
"Oh." Fred said, the color draining from his face. "I forgot that cards wear suits." And with that, he dejectedly slumped away to the parlor. His change from being all at once so happy to suddenly being so dejected almost put a tear in my eye.
Its times like these I feel the game gets a little too cut-throat; I mean, are we family, or what? But then I think about Uncle Jerry yelling at me all those years ago over a game of spades that involved no money at all, and I literally feel my heart harden. What does Frederick care, anyway? He barely has any concept of money to begin with.
On a side note, I wish I could get back at my ol' uncle Jerry by beating him in a poker game, but it'll never happen. Not because he's such a great player or anything, but ol' Uncle Jerry had a stroke about three years ago. He's dead now.
A couple hours passed by in the game and finally the only remaining players were me, my two big brothers, my father, and of course "uncle" Phil. That's when I made my big run. I spiked my pair of sevens on an ace-king-seven flop with both of my brother's holding an ace and my mother holding a king. Mother bet hard to my oldest brother, who responded by going all-in. My other brother thought about it for a second and then proceeded to push all-in himself. I called, and my mother, deciding that she just wanted to "take a bath and go to bed anyways" pushed what remained of her now measly chip stack into the pot as well. Bam, I thought. Just to make things sweeter, another seven came down on the turn.
In one hand, just like that, I had taken both of my brothers and my mother out (it's cut-throat baby, no mercy) and pulled into a solid chip-lead. All that stood between me and glory was my father's measly stack and Uncle Phil, who had steadily grown more and more obnoxious as the game waned on.
"Pssshaw, you've been getting cards all night. It's easy to look good when you get lucky." Phil remarked.
What a fucking asshole, that Phil.
So Dad, a naturally conservative player and now very short-stacked; basically succumbed to the blinds, but in his defense he hadn't gotten cards all night. Phil took him out when Dad went all in with a suited ace and Phil caught a pair of Queens. It was now down to me and Phil.
Dick that he is, Phil is still a hell of a player. When we went heads up, he slowly but surely chipped away at my chip stack until we were almost even. I saw this, and decided to play a bit more aggressively. I couldn't have picked a worse time. I was dealt a pair of threes and decided to raise Phil up.
Unbeknownst to me, Phil was dealt pocket rockets. He re-raised me, and hard, almost immediately.
Normally, I would have folded to a bet like this. I could tell Phil had a hand. I sat motionless for a while and mulled over my three's; thinking about how great it would be if I were to pick up a three on the flop and take this petulant whiner out. I decided, foolishly, to push Phil all-in. He insta-called me and turned over his pair of aces.
Fuck, I thought. I was done for.
I was even more done for when the flop came down ace-four-five. Phil now had three-of-a-kind aces to my pair of threes.
The turn card was dealt; the five of diamonds. Phil wasn't even paying attention, talking snidely about how players like me were going to make him rich someday and pouring himself a glass of victory cabernet. He didn't even notice that I now had an outside straight draw.
The river came down. It was the seven of clubs. I had made my straight. Poor Phil couldn't believe his eyes.
"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?" Phil shouted. "THAT IS ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT."
I tried to be sportsman-like about the whole thing, but Phil would have none of it.
"Sorry buddy, sometimes that's the way the cookie crumbles. But seriously, good game." I offered my hand for Phil to shake. He didn't return the gesture.
"You are an idiot." Phil pointed out. "That was the stupidest call I've ever seen. You went all-in with a pair of three's? That was just idiotic."
"Well, I'm sorry Phil" as I reached for the bank money and started putting the chips back in their sleeves, "but you know, that's poker!"
"I'll show you poker, you son of a bitch!"
Phil's mother and my aunt were walking into the dining room from the parlor to see what all the commotion was about. Now I didn't necessarily fear for my life or anything, but the guy was coming at me. My right hand was stretched across the table grabbing for the cool four-hundred I had just made when I saw him lunge out of my periphery. I reacted as anybody probably would in my situation and backhanded him across the face.
"AWWWW MY EYE!" Cried Phil.
"What did you do to my boy?" Screamed his mother.
"MAMA! MAMA! HE TRIED TO HURT ME!"
"I saw it baby, I saw it. Come with me." Phil's mother consoled him as they shuffled to the front door. Phil was sobbing uncontrollably.
"Don't worry baby, we'll never come back to THIS house for Thanksgiving." She glared at me as she escorted her baby boy out the door.
The door slammed, and Phil and his mother were gone. The house was finally silent for a moment.
I slowly picked up my winnings; four hundred dollars, and looked questioningly yet triumphantly at my aunt across the room. She switched her gaze from the front door and looked at me, exasperated.
"Well," She said, disappointed. "So much for the good lime-green jello, I guess."
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If you don't believe how big of a little bitch Phil can be, just look at this video. I warn you however; like this post, it's too long to be very funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kHkdjmssus
User Reviews
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2007-11-26 06:33:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
According to you you flopped a gutshot. Meaning he woul have been watching it from then on. Maybe the flop was A 6 4 with a 5 on the turn? Would make more sense, meaning you had the 7 out and the 2 out.
Submitted by beeltea (user info) at 2007-11-26 06:18:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
i'm reposting this. I can't make an error that glaring.
Submitted by beeltea (user info) at 2007-11-26 05:50:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
six of diamonds on the turn. edit.
Submitted by beeltea (user info) at 2007-11-26 05:48:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
oops. you're right. fuckity fuck.
Submitted by bart (user info) at 2007-11-26 05:36:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Good story, but you messed up the cards on the final hand. As you have it here, he would have gotten a full house on the turn... one of those fives was supposed to be a six.
Submitted by beeltea (user info) at 2007-11-26 04:40:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
There HAS to be a place on the internet where you can read about nice, decent things happening to nice, decent people and then experience a pleasant aftermath of everyone getting on splendidly.
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That would be extremely boring.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2007-11-26 04:32:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I couldn't read this, it was too upsetting.
There HAS to be a place on the internet where you can read about nice, decent things happening to nice, decent people and then experience a pleasant aftermath of everyone getting on splendidly.
*sigh*
Anyway I'm sure this is a very good post chock full of dizzying highs and dazzling revelations about BLT's character, upbringing and experiences so I shall give it a plus 2.
Should I return when fully fortified with caffienated drink and sunlight, however, to find that this post is nothing more than a soup of dross, drivel and vulgarity then angry words shall be unseathed and BLT's piss-poor personality righteously crucified.