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The New Deal

It was already 7:55 and I was scrambling for players. “C’mon Doc G, you can do it,” I said, pitching our psychiatrist alternate. He had just returned from a vacation to a remote Caribbean island where, Kurtz-like, he used his svengali powers to coerce the natives into crowning him a kind of living deity. Virgin sacrifices, heads on pikes, necklaces of human fingers, the whole bit. He complained he had been up for the last 36 hours: the invasion into neighboring Barbados got protracted, and he was slightly wounded by an irate souvenir coconut sculpture vendor. Plus, there were delays flying into LaGuardia--so he just wasn’t going to make it.

With Koneo in London, and Hank and Redcard in New Orleans, we were flirting with the possibility of an aborted game: an occurrence as rare as a Jewish Power-Forward. For poker addicts like us, this was a perilous situation. This was especially a crisis for me. I was about to unveil a new game that I have had in accelerated development for the last 2 years. New games don’t come often to our table, and even more rarely make it into regular rotation. My last innovation, “Mexican Head,” which required each player to blindly hold 7 cards around the brim of a large sombrero was an unmitigated disaster. But tonight I felt confident.

The new game is a combination of Omaha, (or Joe Leiberman as we call it,) iron cross, and the $64,000 pyramid. Each player gets four down cards, and 6 common cards are laid in the shape of a pyramid: a row of three, a row of two, and one on top. After the initial bet, the row of three is flipped, followed by a bet, then the next row of two, bet, finally the last card is flipped, bet, declare, bet. Player must use one and only one card from each row.

By 10:00 with the addition of alternates Gorg and Ted-o we had enough players to make a quorum. With the deal to me I made my announcement to the skeptical crowd. The game proceeded well betting was light, the action chary, and after the Jay-ish pot had been split I was reassured by the slightest hint of satisfied nods from Chowhound and Edict. So far so good, but my introduction had certainly not yet been formally ordained.

With deal coming round to me again I gave it another go. Betting was more confident this time. “Buck-a-back two bucks.” Lymie’s eyes narrowed. Other players began to drop. “Buck-a-back two bucks.” More folds. “Buck-a-back two bucks.”

At the time of declaration there were three of us: Lymie, Chowhound, and Me. The hands unfolded: Lymie and I were high, Chowhound locked the low. “I’ll bet a dollar.” Lymie turned his eyes from the king-maker in the middle of our table, gave me a wry look, and curled his lips, “Buck-a-back two bucks.” As if driven by divine force, I threw in two more blue chips on my three queens.

“What d’ya got Lymo?”
“A straight to the nine.”

There was a pause. The table groaned as six players leaned over heavily to make their independent analysis.

“Looks more like a pair of sevens,” said a voice from the crowd.
“You’ve actually got a pretty good low there, Lymie.”
“Now wait just a fuckin’ minute …. Its …I got…hold on heeah…”

And as Lymie repeated his now hysterically familiar incredulous fumphering over his mis-called hand, I gleefully split the pot up, knowing that we had a new game, a new wrinkle, and a new cause for humiliation and ecstasy on Tuesday Night Poker.