Kamikaze Poker

We're well past 2am at the poker game, on a night where I've rebuyed in the tournament and still gone out first, at a cash table where I'm up from my starting stack, but not exactly setting the world on fire. In a six-handed game of pot limit Omaha (high only), I get a pair of jacks and a middling flush draw. The board misses all of that, and the player on my right bets.

And for some reason -- boredom? suicidal urges? -- I call. So does a third player.

The turn is a second club to go with two diamonds now; I have no flush draw. The player on my right bets it harder.

And for some reason -- the desire to hit a miracle jack on the river and still lose? -- I call. So does the third player.

The river completes the club draw and a bunch of other possible hands. And something tells me that neither player is happy to see it.

So I say the magic words.

Pot. As in, I bet the pot. With every chip I have, on a hand that can't possibly be ahead of either player.

And as soon as I do it, I'm confident it's going to work. The first player agonizes for a good couple of minutes. The second player starts moaning about how could I possibly stay up with my King-high flush draw, how could I possibly stay in after the two previous bets...

And, well, I've had worse times.

Finally, the first player throws it away; turns out that he hit the wheel, but it goes into the muck. The second player mucks as well.

And I show the bluff, and the table more or less breaks to go smoke a cigarette and, I suspect, go find a dog to kick or something.

I didn't actually play all that well tonight; I was too impatient in the tournament and kept losing with trips in Omaha, as if trips in Omaha is any kind of a hand, really.

But the only thing I'm going to really remember from this game in the long run?

Shoving and bluffing, of course. Wonderfully stupid, surprisingly effective idiocy.