Top this one, baby. You’re playing poker at the Drive You To Drink Casino and it’s action city. No one ever lays a hand down – no matter how much it costs – and if you were armed with a machete and a machine gun, they wouldn’t even notice because they’re playing POKER. They came to play.

They have uneven stacks of endless columns of chips forming barriers in front of them and those stacks seem to be a homing device for more chips. They’re laughing and boisterous. Their eyes are filled with excitement. Each hand is a shoot out and the pot is so big that no one seems to mind if they win or lose because as the next hand begins, the same scenario starts all over.

You haven’t won a pot in days – even though you tried to run over 4-5 off suit with AA and even flopped a set. Then you tried again with K-K – ending up with almost the same result. You even flopped top set once and got it beat by an under set. Steaming . . . hell no! Your blood is ice cold at this point. You barely have a heart beat. If the dealer looked at your fingernails, she would’ve noticed that they were blue and probably call for a medic. You may even be clinically dead at this point.

You finally decide to give up this insanity and drive over to the Don’t Jump, We’ll Push You Casino. You walk into the poker room and right into a seat in a $4-8-8 limit holdem game. Perfect! The game looks pretty evenly spaced as far as loose-tight players go. The guy in the 5 seat plays every hand and usually raises if it isn’t raised to him. You can even count on him to re-raise.

Your in the 3 seat in a heart beat and ready to rock and roll. You win the first 2 hands you play and already you know . . . you know you’re going to run over this game and get all of your money back from your hours of tormented play with the psychopaths down the street.

This game has a $1 and $2 blind structure. It’s your big blind and the guy on your left straddles the bet for $4. The 5 seat calls and the button calls. You look down to pocket 4’s and call $2 more. No raise. The flop comes k-6-4, all off suit. You check, check, 5 seat bets, button calls, you call and the straddle hand pitches. The turn comes a 4 (Is this fun or what?) and you check, 5 seat bets, button calls, you raise.

The 5 seat re-raises and says, “Don’t worry, honey, we can still be friends when this is over.” The button calls and you are looking towards the heavens silently saying, “Thank you, God!”

You re-raise and say, “Gee, I sure hope so.” The 5 seat re-raises and the button calls, going all in. You can only call as this house only allows 1 bet and 3 raises.

The last card comes a 4. No, dummy, not the case 4. You made 5 of a kind. The first 4 fours were all clean. The last 4 placed two 4’s of spades on the board. You know the Card Fairy got you on that one – the Card Fairy sometimes sneaks in and paints cards before the dealer burns and turns – you don’t know what you did to irritate her, but she gave you a true belly buster with that one.

Some players say you should’ve shown one 4 and bet, they failed to remember that the button was all in and you had to show down the hand to win the pot. The real truth . . . you believe in the integrity of poker. You wouldn’t pull that worthless sham on an art that has made you a living and a million acquaintances.

You call the floor man yourself. Everyone’s looking at you as if you’ve lost your mind. The floor man walks to the table and you calmly say, “There are three 4’s on the board.”

He says, “Yes?”

You gently lay down your hand and state, “Well, here’s two more to go with those.”

The table goes into the “ooh” and “ahhh” stage and everyone is given back their money. You calmly put your chips in a rack and head out the door. Your defeated, done, toast, finished, beat, pounded, dead meat, cooked, expired, insane, lost, gone, and at least 5 cans short of a six pack.

About three months pass and you go back into the Don’t Jump, We’ll Push You Casino, take a seat in a game and a guy pipes up immediately, “Hey, I remember you. The odds are quad zillion, ninety-seven trillion to one, that you can make 5 of a kind. Not only was that card not even supposed to be in the deck but for you to flop a set, then make quads, and then have ‘that’ card come up – when it shouldn’t even have been in the deck, why you’re a very unique individual. It just doesn’t happen!”

Well, thank you. Thank you very much. The best part of a strange hand or an unusual beat is that it’s over. Once it’s finished, it’s not supposed to happen again for a long, long time. See you there.