Originally Posted by schlucky1
I got this story from Ryan Daut's old blog, and he copied it off some un-named forum, so I take zero credit for it. I'm sure some of you have seen this before, but it's always a fun read. Enjoy:
"Will somebody please read this hand history and tell me how I could have played it better? I'm always looking to improve on my hands.
It was a hot and dry day in El Paso when I played that hand in 1849. I'm not sure why I decided to return to the saloon, and once more risk losing it all; maybe it was boredom, days on end of seeing nothing from my porch besides hot, dry sand and desert lizards reflected in the rising steam. God knows where that steam came from. There wasn't water for miles.
I burst through the doors of The Broken Spoke holding all that i had earned from my 3 long months working on the ranch of Dallas Bill, one hundred and two dollars. I looked down back to my usual table: the usual suspects were at it again: Switchblade Joe, Tumbleweed Tim, Vegas Black, and Double Dee. Me? They call me Six-Shooter Sam.
I took my seat. The name of the game was $100 NL, the highest stakes in town. I shouted at the bartender. "Hey Lady, bring me some goddamn whiskey." Luckily, she had it. I would have taken horse piss. Anything to rid myself of the grit on the back of my throat.
First hand I'm on the big blind, and I look down to find the king of hearts and the ten of spades. Folds all around to me, except for Vegas Black who makes it three to go. I eyed him over carefully. He was a smooth one, that Vegas Black; unpredictable, like a cross-breed between a rattlesnake and a scorpion: you never quite could tell which way he was slithering, but one sting from him and men were pushing up daisies. Vegas Black was known in Texas to raise pots with any old hand, he could be sitting on anything from 2 7 offsuit to a pair of bullets. I saw a drop of sweat roll down my forehead and hit the felt. Vegas gave me a sinister grin. "Call." He urged. "I dare ya."
I called his raise. The flop comes 10 clubs, 7 clubs, A spades. Vegas bets out strong, $6, clearly trying to bluff me out.
"It'll take a lot more than that to get me out of this pot, partner," I said to Vegas in a raspy voice, my throat raw from the sand and the whiskey. "$20 to go."
Vegas lit a cigarette and sucked the smoke through the gap where his left front tooth used to be before he lost it taming Memphis, the wild black stallion that townsfolk rumored Vegas found at the gates of hell after getting shot by Kentucky Jack on the longest day December. "$50."
"I call."
The turn comes up, the Ace of diamonds. Vegas checks. Now I'm in for it. My pair of tens is looking worse by the minute. I check behind.
The river comes, the ten of hearts. Vegas checks again, settting his trap, except this time I can fight back. "I'm all-in."
Vegas looks at me and gives another wicked grin. He stands up from the table, pulls his pistol out from his holster, and pointing it at his own head says to me, "I raise you your life."
A lot of things went through my mind at that moment. My wife, my children, my future goals of saving enough money to move out west to california and strike it rich, but for some reason, I knew Vegas Black wasn't holding an ace.
"Vegas," I said, with shaky hands, pulling out my six-shooter from its brown leather holster, "you're a dead man." I pointed my six-shooter at my own head with my right hand, and flipped over K10 with the other. Vegas flipped over 88 and shot himself dead, in the middle of The Broken Spoke, on that hot and dry 1849 day in El Paso, when I made the biggest gamble of my life.
True story. No ban plz."