I hit the Bike for poker again last night. I know, I know: I keep swearing I’m going to quit and then I go back and play some more. The first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem, and I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been having a problem lately with losing. Last night, I finally achieved recovery and ended the session + $280.

Best hand of the night was when I was dealt 7-7. When I looked at my cards I felt a certainty that there’d be another one on the flop. But I feel that way almost every time I get pocket pair, especially when they’re Aces or Kings, and I’m usually wrong, so I just called. But this time I was right: the flop came 3-7-Q rainbow, giving me a set with no flush or straight possibilities out there. Sweet.

The guy in front of me bet $10, so I re-raised him $10 — enough to suck a little more cash out of him but not make him fold. Everyone else folded around to him … and he re-re-raised me another $40.

Well.

I stopped down and thought about it for a minute. What the hell was he raising me with? I kept looking at the board and trying to figure out if I was missing something there. He couldn’t be drawing to a flush or a straight — well, he could, but stupidly since he’d need runner-runner to get there — and I was certain he didn’t have trip Queens, so the only possibility was two pair. That put me out in front and him chasing, so since I didn’t want to let him catch a full house I re-re-re-raised him a whole stack — $100. But he called all-in. Wow. And also uh-oh.

But the river was a thing of beauty: a 7. That gave me four of a kind, the absolute nuts. And I had been right about his hand: two pair, Queens and threes. Push that nice big pot to me.

Aaaah, I love having the nuts.

When I stopped at the cash machine when I first got there, I found incontrovertible evidence of someone else who clearly had not had the nuts:

Now that’s a gambling problem.