The Poker Game.

A Story by Oliver Bergh

Let your mind take you to a dark room, a light over a round table, three teenagers sitting around it. A dim light on the table. This is the Poker Game.

Sam, Johnny, and I sat around a table, poker cards hidden in our hands.

“I raise, two blue.” Sam throws out two blue chips. The pot was now two thousand dollars.

“That's a whole lot of Twinkies, son.” I said, “I call.” Throwing out my two blue circular chips, all eyes turned to Johnny. “What's it gonna be?”

Johnny looked at his cards, his expression never changing. A professional poker face, unlike mine, where I'll start smiling if I'm bluffing or I have a good hand. He took only a minute to think, and then slowly pushed every single one of his chips into the center of the table. “All in.” he said, his eyes hidden behind cheap five dollar sunglasses.

Sam immediately threw in his cards, cursing Johnny out with some “f**k you”s and “God-damn”s. Then it was to me. If I called I'd have to go all in. I looked at my cards, easily lifting up the corners to sneak a peak at the two red aces that appeared before me.

I slight grin appeared on my face in spite of my efforts to keep it in.

“I call.” I said, pushing every one of my stacks in.

Johnny grinned. That's not good. I thought.

Sam dealed out the flop. Three of spades, ace of clubs, three of hearts.

A party erupted in my mind, I had triple aces, how could I be beat? It seemed unlikely at first, and then I saw the flaw. If he had two threes I'd be done for. But what are the chances of that? Only a madman would go in on pocket threes. Since we were all in, Sam dealed the turn without hesitation.

Three of diamonds.

Again, Sam dealed.

King of spades.

I hesitated, my eyes picked up from the river and stared at Johnny. What do you have? I said to myself. He could've been staring back at me, but through his thick shades I couldn't tell. “Well?” I said, flipping my pocket rockets at him.

The grin disappeared off his face. “Nice hand.” he said.

“Why thank y-”

“But not as good as mine.” He flipped his cards, a three of diamonds and a king of clubs. Full house.

That b*****d.