All-in and a call
Oftentimes when something amazing happens, someone responds to the excitement with the line, “Well, now I’ve seen it all.”
Of course, we’ve never seen it all, since something else inevitably happens to elicit the same reaction. But over the weekend, something happened in a seemingly innocuous poker tournament that kind of makes me think that I really have seen it all.
It was Event #12 of the inaugural Lone Star Poker Series, hosted by Houston’s Champions Poker Club. PokerGO streamed the festivities, where Troy Clogston and Don Iyengar were all-in, cards flipped over. Clogston hads about double Iyengar’s chips, 1.2 million to 650,000, so while losing the hand would have been painful, Clogston still wouldn’t have been in dire straits.
And Clogston was in great shape, showing Pocket Jacks against Iyengar’s A-J. All he had to do was avoid an Ace, four diamonds, or four clubs. He was 70% to win.
But that’s not all
Making small talk while the dealer was preparing to deal the flop, Clogston said something about 8-9-10 coming on the flop. A few seconds later, the dealer knocked the table and laid out the flop and sure enough, 8-9-10 were revealed and in exactly that order. The stream’s announcers and the players at the table were all amazed at Iyengar’s fortune telling.
Before the turn, Clogston, feeling good about what he just did, looked around and casually said, almost asking, “Four of spades…”
“Oh my goodness,” a nearly exasperated Iyengar said, as the rest of the players started laughing about how insanely improbable Clogston’s predictions had been.
Is this your card?
You know where this is going. Clogston, himself laughing and smiling, yet looking sort of nervously fidgety in disbelief, tugged on his crew neck t-shirt, touching it to his mouth a couple times. Another player, confirming with the others that Clogston had called all four cards, asked him what was coming on the river.
Now, for a player ahead in an all-in situation on the river, the desired card is often, “Deuce!” It was no different here, except that Clogston specified: two of hearts.
When that two of hearts landed on the river, the table exploded. Everyone jumped out of their seats and left, like they just saw something unholy. One player kept saying, “Stop! Stop! Stop!”
Even my wife, who has absolutely zero interest in poker or really anything I do or enjoy, couldn’t believe it and continued to talk to me about it for a solid five minutes.
A natural reaction from some, including my lovely spouse, is that Clogston must have been up to something. He must have been cheating. But not only was there absolutely zero indication that there was any funny business going on, but he would have to be the world’s worst cheating to basically say, “Hey everyone, I’m totally cheating and I’m going to prove it to you right here on a live stream.”
What really happened was just an incredible moment of craziness that I will definitely be watching many more times.