I had just gotten moved into the dorms. With a dramatic flop, I landed onto my new mattress as it started to sink in that not only was I at a new college, but I also only knew one person and that was it. About the time my nerves started to get the best of me, my phone rang. It was an invitation to a poker night party which my friend decided would be an awesome way to meet new people. I had nothing else going on so I jumped in the shower and headed over to my friend's dorm room. I start to get an overwhelming amount of information all at once about who I should focus on, who I shouldn't focus on, this person is a complete bitch, and all that sort of fun stuff. Before I could wrap my head around all the names, we jumped into his truck and took off.
We pull up the gravel driveway in front of the house. You could tell this belonged to a college aged person due to all the trash bags stacked in the garage full of old beer cans. There's cars parked in all sorts of various manners across the yard as we exit the vehicle and make our way inside. We get a foot into the door before all the introductions start. Over and over again I repeat the same thing verbatim: I'm from Arkansas, I've never fucked my sister, I'm horrible with names, and I'm majoring in computer programming. And again. And again.
Once I get a drink in my hand I start to feel a little more at ease. This is way more people than I was mentally anticipating, but there was nothing I could do to change it. I had lost Jason, but I could hear his voice in another room so I made my way in that direction. It was what would've normally been a dining room, but everything had been cleared out and a large poker table had been set up in the middle. Dave, the guy that rented the house, was sitting at the center of the circular table that at the moment was seating 6 people. I sat down at the table and introduced myself. Dave was immediately disarming, making sure that I had a drink and explaining the rules of how they played five card draw. I pulled a twenty dollar bill from my pocket and the game began.
The first couple of hands weren't anything worth talking about. One of the guys who everyone called Tex seemed to have a good knack for bluffing other people. It also didn't hurt that the girl he was with kept coming through the room and leaning over the table in her low cut shirt, no doubt giving him hints to what the rest of us were holding. Keenly aware of this, I started to be a bit more discreet with my card holding. As the night wore on, the table became smaller. There were about four of us left, Tex having the largest stack of chips obviously. Fortunately, poor Dave was holding up the back end so that I didn't have to look like I wasn't sure what I was doing.
It took some time, but I finally got the hand that I wanted. Two aces and a king. I lay my three cards face down on the table and discard the two. My first card is a four, which doesn't help for shit, but the second is the godsend...an ace of diamonds. I look around the table and everyone has folded except for Tex. He immediately raises for half of the chips I have in front of me. Without any hesitation at all, I shove my chips to the middle of the table, and look him dead in the eyes. "No fucking way you got me on this. The best you've got is a pair of fucking kings and that's not going to beat my trip aces", Tex stated as convincingly as he could muster. I knew without a shadow of a doubt there was no way in hell he had what he said he did. "Dude, if you beat me, I'll suck your dick right here in front of everyone", he laughed.
