Yawn. It’s 6:30 a.m. and I’m just getting in from an all-nighter playing poker at the Commerce. It’s been a long time since I played poker but it looks like I still got it: I cashed in for $200 and cashed out for $625. Ya gotta love a winning session.

Warning: poker content.

I was playing No Limit Hold ’em at the $100 buy-in table. The best hand of the night was at about 5:00 a.m. Most of the players had been at the table for hours, so we had a rhythm going and the mood was very laid-back and relaxed. It was a friendly table. Then a new player showed up: kid in his mid-20’s, Rolex, slicked-back hair, staring at everybody hard, called the floorman over to let him know (loud enough for us all to hear it) that he was on the board for the $600 buy-in game if they were looking for him — basically, he wanted to make sure we knew the Real Player had arrived. He didn’t do much of anything for five or ten minutes, just checked and folded while looking at us hard, but poker-wise he didn’t make any kind of splash. Then he made a move.

He’s on the button, I’m in middle position. I get my cards and look down to find A8 offsuit. I call the big blind, and then when the betting gets around to the Real Player, he comes out with $50. Everyone folded around to me, and I had a hunch, so I called him.

I don’t remember exactly what the flop was, but it had a King and there was no Ace. I made a feeler bet to see where I was, something like $25. The Real Player nonchalantly went all-in behind me with something like $100. I called Time.

I thought about it for a looong minute. I remembered his show-off entrance. I especially remembered his conversation with the floorman about being on the board for the $600 game and I thought it was ostentatious bullshit — I didn’t think this guy had even seen a $600 table, let alone played one. I thought about how nonchalantly he went all-in — players often try to act strong when they’re bluffing a weak hand. And I took a long minute to look at him, sitting over there at the opposite end of the table, being very interested in something happening at the next table.

And then he yawned. That’s when I knew he was bluffing: yawning is a sign of stress.

He was representing a King and I knew he didn’t have one. I put him on maybe an Ace like me, but I halfway thought he didn’t even have that much. I thought that even if he did have an Ace, my 8 kicker might still be good. And I had a pretty big stack and could afford to lose if I was wrong. So I put him on a lying-ass-dog bluff and I called him.

Well. It turned out I was half right: he didn’t have a King but he did have an Ace — with a bigger kicker than mine, a 9. So I had had the right read on him, but the wrong kicker with my Ace. So he won the hand, took me down for about $150, and he was very proud of himself for it. He crowed about how shitty my kicker was and how stupid I was to call with it, and I let him have the moment and didn’t remind him that his kicker was very nearly as shitty as mine and that he’d been on a lying-ass-dog bluff in the first place — and that I had a read on him. I just paid him off and waited for the right hand.

About 10 minutes later, it came: I looked down to find KK. The way the table had been running all night, I would have bet out large with them pre-flop — but not too big to scare away any callers — and hope no Ace come on the flop. With Real Player, though, I knew he’d probably call me with anything, so I went all-in preflop, something like $225. And I was right, he called me with AJ.

When he saw my Kings, he couldn’t believe I was betting against his Ace with them. No way were they going to hold up; he was going to catch an Ace and I’d be busted. It was all over but the dealing. I guess he didn’t know he was only 13% to catch a second Ace.

The dealer dealt the flop. And then the turn. And then the river. And what do you know: not one of those five cards was an Ace. Which meant that my Kings held up. And when the dealer counted Real Player’s stack down, it turned out that we both had the exact same number of chips … and they were all mine now. And so the Real Player was busted and he tucked his tail between his legs and left the table and that was the last we saw of him.

I love it when that happens.

And now… Now I’m off to bed to dream of giant pots and spanked loudmouths.