Card Sharks

I started playing a lot of poker in college.

My friends and I would get together and hang out in the basement, I set up a large folding table and my dad would order us pizza. We'd use real poker chips and play for hours.

My dad also played poker with his friends. We never played together but as fate would have it, one night they were short a player when my dad's friend had to cancel last minute with the flu and did I want to sit in and play?

I was down.

One of my dad's friends Johnny, immediately turned to me from across the table, "I just want you to know that this isn't like your little poker game with friends, we play for real here," he snickered and all the guys, aside from my dad chuckled.

"Ok, that's fine," I shrugged.

So I bought in, same as everyone else and we played the first round. Johnny won the first round and laughed, wanting to know if I "saw how he played," and I agreed that I had "indeed saw how he played."

We threw our cards in and shuffled them up, they were dealt, and the strangest thing happened: I won the next hand...

"Beginner's luck," Johnny had jokingly quipped, the other guys laughed too.

But when I won the next game, and the next game, and the next one after that, and when I cleaned out on the final pot, the all in whole shabang... Johnny had stopped laughing, my dad on the other hand could barely contain himself laughing just a little harder with each consecutive win...

And because when the game was over and I just couldn't resist myself as I was stacking all my winnings I just had to... "Hey Johnny," this time I chuckled..."You sure were right about this game being nothing like the little games I play with my college buddies.... they usually beat me."

And now my dad and his friends were roaring. Johnny was less than amused and I was never asked to play again, but... totally worth it.