It was Ivan’s turn to deal. After he deals, we all look at our
cards in order to make our decisions for the first round of betting. Ivan, to “get the party started
right,” then says, “Let’s ride the pony, gentlemen.” There was a
horrible, awkward pause because this was the least, ahem, “manly” thing
ever uttered at our game. A million insta-jokes ran through my mind—1)
That’s not really my thing, dude. 2) I’m flattered, but that’s not
really how I roll. 3) Wait a minute, I didn’t know this was going to
turn into that kind of game. 4) Sorry, but I left my chaps at home. 5) If you try to touch me, I’ll kill you. —but I let it slide by.

To help out all you youngsters out there from committing this type of
“party foul,” I’ve put together a list of allowable phrases to utter
after the deal:

1) “Let’s do this.” Short, to the point, and it sounds really cool. A classic.

2) If you want to give a little extra flavor that phrase, you can add one word and say, “Let’s do this thing.”

3) For extra street cred, you can change the “i” in thing to an “a” and say , “Let’s do this thang.”

That’s about it, except if you really want to sound badass and sort of
ridiculous, in which case you might be able to get away with,
“Come with it.” 

 
It was another mediocre evening, but on the last hand of the night I
had a chance to come out a little more ahead than I did. I
was holding K-8 unsuited, Bert, a truly good player, was holding K-7
unsuited, and we were heads-up. That’s right, every card but a seven
helps me. Do the math: three cards help him, and forty-eight help me,
which means that I’m a sixteen-to-one favorite. Life is beautiful, so
goddamned lovely. The flop comes K-3-7, giving me top pair, but giving
Bert top two pair. Essentially, my hand is already blown, and now every
card but an “8” helps him. He’s now a huge favorite. Of course, I don’t
know this, so, after Bert checks it, I make the max bet, and Bert very
calmly calls it, slow-playing his monster hand. Then, miracle of
miracles, an “8” hits on fourth. Bert checks, I bet the max again, and
Bert, still thinking he’s slow-playing his monster, simply calls. We’re
back to every card but a seven helping me. What comes down on fifth? A
seven, giving him a boat. I still think I’m way ahead, but Bert makes
the
max bet after fifth, four dollars. I look at the board, understand that
the seven helped him, so much that he’s going to come out blasting,
backtrack through the hand, understand that if the last seven helped
him, then so did the seven on the flop, which means that he had a seven
in his hand, which means that, at the very minimum, he’s made three
sevens. If this were the case, I could try to re-raise another four
dollars and try to drive him off of his hand. But if he were only
playing off of the seven, he would have
folded earlier when I was making the max bets, so he’s probably holding
a king as well . It’s looking pretty probable that he has the boat, and
it’s going to cost me four dollars to find out. A better man than me
probably would have laid his hand down, but the curiosity was killing
me, so I called. He turns over his K-7, and I’m out about ten dollars
on the last hand of the night. It hurt, but it also felt kind of good,
if you know what I mean.
 
Poker Problem: Why must the innocent suffer?