World Series Wannabe Stuck in Minor Leagues

World Series Wannabe Stuck in Minor Leagues
By John Vaughn

My name is John and I'm a poker addict. I don't actually play the game; I just can't stop watching it on TV.

It started out innocently enough when my wife and I saw Ocean's 11. Then we rented Rounders (talk to my wife about the Matt Damon addiction) and the next thing I know, my life is a relentless cycle of The World Series of Poker on ESPN, the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel and - this really hurts - Celebrity Poker Showdown on Bravo. When you're avoiding social obligations to watch C-level celebrities whose careers peaked on I love the 80's face off in televised card-playing, it's no longer a guilty pleasure. It's a problem.

I hit rock-bottom in early April when, under the guise of taking my pregnant wife to the sunny skies and luxurious spas of Las Vegas for one last child-free vacation, I decided to live the TV fantasy and play in the No Limit Texas Hold'em World Championship.

Binion's Horseshoe wasn't quite what I expected from watching all those reruns on ESPN. The air tasted stale compared to the digitally-controlled climates of newer casinos and the faded maroon wallpaper was dim from years of smoke. It was great. My wife looked for a cab back to the strip - I looked for an open seat. Since I didn't have $10,000 in cash handy, I decided to start at a low-limit table and earn my way into the big dance.

The players looked as rough as their surroundings. Everyone seemed to have been sitting there since Benny Binion opened the joint 53 years ago. I felt like I stumbled into a nursing home on the wrong side of the tracks; instead of rogue gamesmanship, I was treated to discourses on how the cafeteria's coffee isn't what it used to be by people forgetting it was their turn to bet.

The book I read on the flight out said you should only enter about 10% of hands in Texas Hold'em, but after an hour and a half of watching people win hands with weaker cards than mine, I started to have my doubts. When the guy next to me won a big pot with nothing more than pocket 2's, he leaned over to me and said, "You know, any 2 cards can win."

My own wife turned up the heat on me. I could feel her gravid "my back hurts and the slot people are scaring me" look burning my neck. I had to make a move.

As if by divine intervention, the next deal revealed a beautiful site: 4 eyes staring back at me through the shadows of my cupped hands. A pair of kings.

Trying to hide the adrenaline-soaked trembling of my hand, I raised the bet to $4. I spent more on a pack of Tums in the Mirage gift shop, but it felt like a hostile takeover bid.

The next 3 players folded, obviously cowed by my heavy action, but the leader of the ill-tempered octogenarians at the other end of the table re-raised me another $2. All the chatter about cheap buffets and sciatica trickled to a stop as the remaining players got out of our way.

I glared at my adversary. His yellowed gray hair matched the nicotine stains on his shaky fingers. He patted his frail chest, looking for the glasses already perched above his nose, but I wasn't falling for it. I raised him again, sliding $2 towards him with the contempt of a Wal-Mart driving out a Mom and Pop operation. He feebly called.

The flop came queen-ten-four off suit. I could hear Mike Sexton's play-by-play in my head: "Without the possibility of a straight or higher pair on the board, John is a big favorite to drag this pot." I raised another $2.

Again, my nemesis called. The dealer turned over the 6 of diamonds. With 2 diamonds now showing, he could be on a flush draw. The book said those are long shots, so I bet into him again, this time $4. It felt like a mortgage payment.

Without looking up from his chips, his desiccated fingers slid $8 towards me. "Raise," he croaked.

My chest tightened. Had this grizzled old road gambler been stringing me along?

I looked at my cards again. Suddenly the calculations and probabilities that seemed so clear 30 seconds ago were as confusing as the IRS tax code. But I knew one thing for sure - I didn't suffer through 2000 miles of Southwest's open-seating cattle call to get pushed around by the Methuselah of Fremont Street. So I called. The chips felt leaden.

When the dealer turned over the 5 of spades, I breathed for the first time in what seemed like an hour. With his busted flush draw, I had him beat.

He checked. I thought about twisting the knife with another $4 bet, but I couldn't feel my fingers, so I just checked. I turned over my kings. He turned over a pair of 4's.

As I watched in horror, the dealer pushed the 4 on the board forward, indicating my rival's winning hand of three 4's. I almost grabbed the oxygen tank from the woman sitting next to me; watching those arthritic claws rake in my chips knocked the breath out of me. I played a few more hands in an attempt to save what little face I had left, then nonchalantly stood up and made a big show of helping my pregnant wife out of the casino. I doubt anyone bought the lame obstetrical excuse.

The sting of having my poker dreams dashed against the geriatric rocks of Binion's Horseshoe was a bitter tonic, but a necessary one. I am now clean and sober, and looking forward to the joys of parenthood: watching my baby's first step, hearing her first word, reading her bedtime stories. In fact, I already have one picked out.

"Once upon a time, a card player named Doyle Brunson had a magical SuperSystem... "