This story is from my Bay Area poker buddy JJ. He has a writing style you don't see much in the poker world these days, but those of us old enough to remember rec.gambling.poker and 2+2 know this form well.
Before blogs, vlogs, YouTube, and Instagram, we wrote what we lived, at and away from the table. JJ would have been a star of 1996 rec.gambling.poker, or 2006 2+2.
I'm sure the Lucky Chances regs know this, but Colma in the morning has this specific wind.
Sun's out, looks beautiful, and then it just cuts right through you. Doesn't negotiate. Goes straight to the bone.
I was there for the $250 daily tournament. Tiny field — four tables, the kind of event where you recognize half the faces. Almost immediately, a Shrek plants himself directly to my right.
For the uninitiated: a Shrek is a misreg who plays like a whale.
This one had the full package: cocky, loud, completely unearned confidence. When his name got called for a cash seat he waved the floor off.
"Yeah, I'll win this real quick. Shouldn't be that hard."
My eyes rolled to the back of my head after that comment.
The smirk
A few orbits in I run AK into this older Mexican guy who's been quietly stacking everyone all morning.
The whole room loves him — lots of amigo this, amigo that, and he's grinning through all of it. Genuinely fun guy to have at the table.
I value-own myself to the max for three streets on A-4-8-3-J with AK vs. his 43o. The classic. GGs Amigo. Time to rebuy.
We eventually get down to 14, two tables of seven. Some guy at our table runs tens into a flopped boat (TT vs. 99 on A-A-9) and he folds on the turn after having bet the flop and turn, then getting raised.
He's shaken up, having a little hand funeral to himself, when the Shrek chimes in.
"You didn't play that well."
"I don't know, I feel like I lost the minimum."
"You lost the absolute maximum. Close to it." Big smirk.
He'd been doing this all morning. Uninvited analysis, that little smirk after each one. Turns out he's just as bad in the cash games.
Nobody has been hiding their feelings about him for a while now. Then this hand happens.
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows
Amigo raises to 5K at 1K/2K. Shrek tank-3-bets to 10K on the button — the slow, performative tank — off an 80K stack. Amigo calls, covering him.
Flop: 
. Amigo donks 10K into 25K. Shrek snap-shoves. Amigo tank-calls.
Shrek has AA. Amigo has JT. Everyone at the table immediately knows what they want to happen. It's not even subtle.
The turn is a jack.
The table loses it. Genuinely loses it. Cheering, laughing, the whole thing.
Amigo stacks the Shrek and everyone's delighted. I'm sitting there feeling completely satiated — it doesn't matter what happens to me now. I already got $500 of value just watching that. Freerolling.
I catch eyes with Amigo and do a slow chef's kiss. The Shrek looks at me. "What the f**k?"
"My brother, if you have AA vs. JT on a jack-high board, and everyone and their mother at the table is rooting for another jack to roll off, I think it is time for some introspection."
The Colma wind was still bone-chilling outside. But that moment felt like a hearth.
Featured image generated using AI.
