Mystery Hands and Dinner Breaks

Years ago, I drove 200 miles from Dallas to Shreveport to see Sugar Ray Leonard fight Tommy Hearns. After dinner at Ernest's Supper Club, we were going out to the fairgrounds to see the fight. And who was I there with? R. D. Matthews, Henry Bowen, and Troy Inman – three of the biggest rounders who ever lived. Henry's the one who did eight years on death row for something he didn't do. You hear about gangs today? Well, there isn't one of those guys that this bunch would put up with – I mean, they were some tough customers. You talk about a fish out of water, I was really out of water – but I sure felt safe.

Ernest's Supper Club had the greatest food I've eaten in my whole life. When I was younger and lived in Shreveport, I had a charge account at Ernest's and helped run the craps game upstairs at the club. If I didn't have any cash on me, I'd just sign my name for the food tab. Every time I walked into the restaurant, the band playing on the dance floor would stop what they had been playing and start playing, "I'm just a gigolo, everywhere I go." Every time I'd walk in the door, I tell you! But I loved to dance, and I'd dance all I could, every time I could.

Bob Hooks, a great player who came in second one year at the World Series, and I were playing in a pot-limit hold'em game in Shreveport one time when a play came up that I call my "mystery hand." We'd been playing for quite a few hours, and there was a lot of money on the table. In this particular hand, Wayne Edmunds and I were head-up. I had the stone nuts on fourth street and bet $2,000 of the $5,000 that I had in front of me. Wayne had a habit of putting his head down after he called a bet, so he never saw what was going on anywhere else. As I was making my bet, the dealer grabbed my cards and threw them in the muck. Of course, Wayne didn't see it happen. "What do I do now?!" I was wondering. The dealer burned and then turned the next card. I have big hands, and I just kept them out in front of me as if I was protecting my cards. I bet my last $3,000 and Wayne threw his hand away. I won the pot without any cards! Hooks and everybody else at the table except Wayne saw what happened, but nobody said a thing.

Even though mistakes like that sometimes happened, I really liked it better when we didn't have center dealers, the way it was when I was playing in the old days in Texas. Back then when you had the button, you dealt. And you were never worried about being cheated, either, because everyone was sharp enough to catch a cheater. One time when we were playing no-limit hold'em back in those good ol' days, I was dealing but I wasn't in the hand. The board came Q 10 7. Four players were in this pot. One player had a set of queens, the second one had a set of tens, the third man had a set of sevens, and the fourth player flopped the nut flush!

The worst player of the four had the tens and dropped out on the flop. All the rest of the money got in three ways on the flop. At the river, the board showed the Q 10 7 5 5. Queens full won the pot. Now, here was a scenario where you would love to have the nut flush, because your opponents basically were dead to a queen, a ten, a seven, or a running pair. If the board paired one of the flop cards, someone would make quads – but you're such a favorite with the nut flush. If the tens had stayed in the pot, he would have run second in the hand, the sevens would have run third, and the nut flush would have been fourth. What a hand! What a dealer!

Of course, the three losers in this pot combined probably didn't lose as much as Doyle Brunson lost one time during dinner. Several years ago during Amarillo Slim's Super Bowl of Poker tournament at Caesars Palace, Doyle and I were playing at the same table. During the dinner break, he went off and played some high-limit hold'em. When we resumed playing the tournament after the break, he leaned back in his chair and said, "If I can win the $51,000 they're giving away for first place, I'll only be $14,000 loser for the dinner break!"

Editor's note: T.J. Cloutier is the co-author (with Tom McEvoy) of the Championship series of poker books, including Championship No-Limit & Pot-Limit Hold'em, Championship Omaha, and Championship Hold'em. All of his books are available through Card Player. For more information, visit www.pokerbooks.com.