The One-Outer

At noon today I entered Day 1B of the Wynn $2 million tournament. I did really well in the beginning, getting lots of pairs and often flopping sets. My stack kept increasing until it was almost three times the average. Then I started running card dead, but that was OK because my stack was big enough to last a while. However, by about 8 PM, I only had about 12 big blinds left. I was in the big blind with AJ, and I perfectly predicted what would happen. The small blind had a gigantic stack, about 5 times the size of mine and at least twice that of every other player at the table. Everyone folded, as I predicted, and the small blind shoved, also as I predicted. He assumed it was more likely that I had a poor-to-mediocre hand and would fold rather than risk my whole tournament life. However, I had a great hand and immediately called.

He turned over A2, so I was looking really good, 3:1 in my favor. The board ran out 7KQ3. Two players informed me that they had both folded deuces, meaning there was only one deuce left in the deck. We had already dealt 2 cards to each of 9 players, or 18 cards. Another 4 cards were on the board and there were two “burn cards” that were dealt face down. That left 28 cards. My chances of winning and doubling up were 27:1. And yet, the river card was turned over, and… it was the single remaining deuce, what’s called a “one outer” because only that one card in the entire deck would cause me to lose and bust out.

I know I did everything right; I would not have done anything differently. Still, it’s hard not to think that the universe hates me when I not only lose a 27-to-1 favorite hand but also lose the entire tournament that way. But that’s what happened tonight. Is there a lesson in here? I guess the lesson is just, “That’s poker.”

(The other lesson is that the universe hates me, but I’m going to try to ignore that lesson.)