When Pigs Fly: The Story of An Unbelievable Hand of Poker




You've got a much better chance of getting hit by lightning than seeing this again.

For those of you who play poker, or at the very least, understand the odds related to poker and other card games, you'll appreciate the photo above, taken after the seven of us playing dealer's choice cash games ($40 buy-in with $0.50 & $1 chips in play) last night finished whooping, screaming, laughing and generally gasping in disbelief at how this hand ended.

The game was two card guts. It's a fairly simple game. Each player antes $1, creating a pot of $7. Two cards are dealt to each player (whorehouse style, meaning the cards can be dealt in any order chosen by the dealer) with two cards set aside in the middle of the table, which is called 'the Bitch (most definitely capitalized).'

The goal of the game is to beat whatever hand the bitch is hiding. The decisions are made individually clockwise starting with the player to the left of the dealer, and ending with the dealer 'in position' to make his decision last. The basic strategy of this game is based on two concepts - position and strength of hand. Since the bitch is a random hand, if a player finds himself with a pair in his hand, the odds are that this will be higher than the Bitch. However, position also comes into play. If I am first to act, and I have a pair of deuces, I have to consider the possibility of someone with position on me having a better hand than me. The size of the pot would also influence my decision (with only $7 in the middle I may consider it, with $100 in the middle, I would immediately fold out of position).

Hand One

If two or more players decide to 'stay in' and challenge the random hand, the Bitch is taken out of play, and the game becomes a heads up game between whomever decided to play. Each player shows his hand. Whomever has the best hand wins an amount of money equal to that in the pot (up to $20 maximum), but that money is paid directly from the losing hand's chip stack. The $7 stays in the center of the pot, and each player contributes another $1 contribution, increasing the pot to $14.

All cards are shuffled, save the two random cards that remain in the Bitch, and dealt by the person to the left of the previous hand's dealer. This way, position (remember, it's advantageous to be able to decide last after everyone else has, for example, folded their hands) moves to someone new as long as there is a pot to play for in the center.

Hand Two

This round, the dealer (who is 'in position') decides to challenge the Bitch. Everyone else folds, so this becomes a heads up decision between the remaining player and the cards in the Bitch. Both the player's hand and the Bitch is exposed. In this scenario, the dealer flips over an AJ and the Bitch reveals (slowly and with as much drama as can be mustered) AK. Everyone but the losing player screams and cheers because this means that the loser must match the amount of money in the pot (up to a max of $20 - this can be any amount or unlimited, but we use $20 to limit any single player's exposure). The shocked player pulls together the $14 from their stack and slides it into the center of the pot, which now equals $28.

That's a lot of money ready to be won by someone, but it also presents a lot of risk if you make the wrong call.

Hand Three

Now we arrive at our specific, unbelievable third hand in this game of guts. The dealer has moved one player to the left, giving everyone a new decision making position. Cards are dealt to all players, as well as two cards to create a new Bitch (which is required since it was revealed the last hand). As long as there is money in the pot, the game continues.

No $1 ante per person is required for this round; whenever a loser contributes to the pot, all other players are given a free pass from adding the ante.

Player one folds, player two folds, and player three decides to challenge. All other players fold.

It's back to a single player vs. the Bitch. The player happily turns over AA - the absolutely strongest hand that cannot be beat by any other two card hand. He is ready to scoop the $28 pot for a nice profit.

The rest of us have all but conceded any future shot at that big pot. But, per tradition, the Bitch is revealed one card at a time. 

First card - Ace.

Everyone reacted in their own way, but the net result was that everyone was paying attention to that second card. Only one card out of 52 - a 1.9% chance - would result in a tie.

The second card is flipped, and for a split second, complete silence reigns as everyone's jaws drop and hit the floor.

The Bitch had pocket aces.

The Agony of Defeat

A beat later, the room erupts as described (quite accurately, I might add) at the beginning of this post.

Here's the kicker - the player only avoids paying in the size of the pot if they win the showdown with the Bitch. This player tied the random hand, and therefore had to match the pot as if he lost. Fortunately for him, given our $20 max pot match rule, he only had to contribute an additional $20 instead of the $28 in the pot.

The odds of this specific showdown in 2 card guts seems so unlikely (talking about AA vs. AA specifically), that everyone with a camera phone took a photo of the board to capture the event. We'll be talking about this hand for a long time.

Epilogue

The son of a bitch who lost heads up with AA got QQ on the next hand, happily challenged the Bitch (which held a measly J3), and won all his money back and then some.

Disclosure

I fictionalized portions of this narrative in order to better describe the full range of scenarios possible with two card guts. This is why the chips in the photo don't seem to add up to $28. This game can last one hand (boring) all the way up to lots of hands and $100s of dollars in the pot. However, the description of Hand Three is accurately described.