Kevin: high school bud and fellow poker player

My buddy from high school, Kevin, came down to visit me over the last couple of days. Though Kevin has played a lot of poker in his life, he has not ever done so at a casino, and so I was ready to introduce him to some good games here in Vegas. But the first order of business was playing heads-up in the hotel room at the Plaza, as we had missed the good tournaments due to his late Wednesday arrival. We went 2-2 for the night, and given my stellar heads-up record in the recent past, I thought that he was ready to give Vegas a run for its money. We started at the Plaza sit-n-gos. $40 and 10 people, most of which don't know much about how to play poker well. I remember a particular situation where a guy to my left kept commenting on "floating" an opponent for an attempted bluff on a later street, and the kinds of cards that you want to have in the hole to do so. Mostly, I thought he was full of it and himself. I was ecstatic to have him acting behind me, as I thought I could induce some stupid errors. With the action folded around to me, I made it 300 to go with 50-100 blinds on the button. I held the: [!diamond_three][!club_three] which is not a hand that I really care to see a flop with, but it is definitely a good button raise hand to attempt to steal the blinds. Mr. Sklansky, as we'll call him, went all-in. For those without the poker math prowess, Unless he's holding a 2 or 3 in his hand, I'm no better than about 50% to win the pot, and if he's holding an over pair, I'm about a 4 to 1 dog. I folded, but I showed my pocket pair. He flipped over:

A-D, K-D

which is a classic poker race. I felt that I could outplay him at a future time by showing how tight I play, and he explained to me the David Sklansky "gap theory" in tournament poker, which is that one needs a stronger hand to call than to raise, and that I shouldn't want to gamble in that situation. I was well familiar with that theory, as it is pretty much page one of any tournament poker book, but I decided not to reveal that. Anyhow, on the next trip around on the button, I had the:

A-D, 8-D

which isn't a stellar hand, but since the action had been folded around, I raised again. He immediately went all-in, as I suspected he would do, but he did so very, very quickly, which led me to believe that he was going to do it no matter what I did, like it was rehearsed. I called immediately as well, as I had rehearsed exactly that scenario in advance, and I figured he'd be more risky since he knew I could lay down pairs. He knew he was in trouble, and he flipped over the:

T-S, 6-S

Nice hand, bucko. A re-raise with a hand without much possibility of winning. He actually outflopped me with a 6, but I turned an Ace, and after internally thinking about justice, he left the table. I said, "Keep reading those math books," at which point the entire table started laughing, including the dealer. When it was 3-way, Kevin, this other guy, and I were left, and we all had a similar number of chips. I ended up flopping bottom two pair while the other guy flopped top two, and I was out after pushing all-in. Kevin ultimately took second place, as the guy drew out on his top pair, open ended straight draw. Kevin and I then hit two other tournaments that night, and neither of us did well in either. We played some more heads-up in the room, and then we watched Poker After Dark until we were both unconscious. The trip to the airport was a doosy this afternoon. We left about an hour and fifteen before his flight, and we then hit a wall of traffic when a hottie rear-ended someone in the opposite lanes. Every desperate guy in Vegas had to take a look in our direction. Ultimately, we pulled up to the terminal when there 47 minutes before his flight left, but he made it. Awesome.