My $33,000 Heater: A Wild Night of $100/$200 Limit Poker and Team Game Chaos

You know how some nights at the poker table feel like a slow, painful grind? This wasn't one of them. This was the opposite—a high-speed collision of rungood, bad beats, and utter chaos, all fueled by a special little wrinkle called “Team Game.” I sat down in a $100/$200 Limit Hold'em game with $8,000 and somehow, six and a half hours later, walked away with a chip stack worth $41,400. It was a wild ride, and honestly, my memory is a bit of a blur, but the highlights are burned into my brain.

As Napoleon said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon.' Well, here’s my fable.

The Inevitable Bad Beat

It started, as these stories often do, with a kick in the teeth. A few orbits in, I pick up black Aces on the button. Beautiful. The pot is capped at $400 before it even gets to me, so I happily call, and we go six-handed to a rainbow flop of 8-5-2. Seems safe enough, right? The original raiser, a real crusher we’ll call CAP (Crusher-Action-Pro), bets out. Then, a player I'll call Sid—for Super-Impossible-Donkey—immediately raises. After a few calls, I pop it to a three-bet. CAP calls, and Sid, bless his heart, caps it. The pot is already huge.

The turn is a Jack. It checks to me, and I bet. CAP calls, and Sid check-raises! Now, coming from a normal player, this is terrifying. It screams a set or J-8. But this is Sid. The dude sprays chips like an unmanned fire hose. I put him on something like K-J that he raised on the flop just for fun. I'm not folding Aces here. Are you kidding me? I 3-bet, CAP calls, and Sid caps it again. Off to the river we go.

The river is a five. The board now reads 8-5-2-J-5. My heart sinks a little. Both CAP and Sid check to me. I have to bet. And then CAP check-raises me. Ai-yaa! A river check-raise from this guy is never a bluff. My Aces are dead. Sid calls, and I make the crying call. CAP flips over 5-4 suited. 5-4?! In a game this size? Well, in our Team Game, hands like 5-4, 7-2, and 7-4 are “Bonus Hands” worth double points, so everyone plays them. He chased a gutshot and then hit his trips on the river.

It was like that scene from 'The Rock': "How, in the name of Zeus' BUTTHOLE!... did you get out of your cell?!"

Drawing Dead and Getting There

Not long after, I found myself in another nightmare spot. I had pocket eights in the straddle. The pot was capped pre-flop and I was just along for the ride. The flop came T-3-3. Not great, but you know how it is—sometimes you look for reasons to fold, and other times you look for reasons to call. I convinced myself I was good and was hunting for an eight. What I didn't know was that my own teammate, a solid player we'll call BELT (Break-Even Long Term), had flopped a set with his pocket tens. I was drawing stone-ass dead, save for runner-runner eights. And of course, the turn was an eight. A completely useless, expensive, and gratuitous card that just cost me more money.

I've often said my poker memoir will be titled, "Drawing Dead and Getting There.” This was a perfect example.

The Redemption Arc

The first hour was rough, but then the cards started to thaw. My stack began to replenish itself like it was made of self-healing nanobots. The turning point came in a massive hand. I had Kd-6d, a hand I’d normally fold to three bets, but our team was behind in the Team Game, 6 to 5. Sid's team had game point. I had to play. For the team! My teammate BELT was in there with me.

The flop was 9-6-2. I flopped middle pair. The betting was capped four ways. The turn was a King, giving me two pair, Kings and Sixes. I felt a surge of comfort, like a hug from a chubby aunt. This has to be good, right? Wrong. The turn was capped four ways again. I was so focused on beating Sid that I had no idea my own teammate, BELT, had flopped a set of deuces. I'd just improved to a hand that was guaranteed to get me in more trouble.

Then the river: a beautiful, glorious, life-affirming Six. The board read 9-6-2-K-6. Worst to first. My Kings and Sixes just became Sixes full of Kings. It beat BELT’s smaller full house (deuces full of sixes) and Sid’s trip sixes. We had them both boxed in. In a beautifully democratic moment, we all got to put in raises on the river, each of us certain we had the nuts. When I tabled my hand, the looks on their faces were pure gold.

My teammate BELT muttered something in Farsi that I’m pretty sure translated to, "You have too much salsa on your tortilla chip." It was inconceivable.

The Heater is Real

That hand gave our team game point. On the very next hand, I peeled 9-5 of clubs. Usually an insta-muck, but I was on a rush. You can't fold on a rush! Sid raised, and I capped it. The flop? 9-9-5. A full house. Of course. Sid had pocket Aces, which was just unfortunate for him. What was even crazier is that BELT held pocket fours, and the turn was a four! For the second straight hand, my poor teammate made an under-full that got crushed into dust. Even though we won the Team Game, he was so tilted he could barely give me a fist bump.

He just muttered it was the most abnormal thing he'd ever seen. But in this game, it's just another Tuesday.

A short while later, I racked up my imposing tower of chips, a beautiful sight worth over $41,000, and sashayed over to the cage. It was one of those sessions that pays for a dozen bad ones, a reminder that even when you’re drawing dead, sometimes you get there anyway.