The House of Pain

It was rare to see so many grizzled veterans sitting at the poker table with their mouths agape, yet this is what happened at the Bellagio the other night.

Normal raised pot preflop with 2 protagonists, followed by a rainbow flop of K 7 3.

Postflop action was bet, raise, re-raise, all-in, call.

The board then ran out to (K 7 3) T J.

Following protocol, the called all-in sheepishly tabled AQ for the nut straight, while the other guy just stared in disbelief, throwing his AK faceup into the muck.

As the dealer was pushing the huge pot and before we all recovered, the young nerdy gentleman sitting next to me had already keyed in the hand into his smartphone app and whispered, "Geez, AK was 98.1% favorite on the flop!"

Yeah, that's sure to give me some comfort next time I get sucked out on when only a 93% favorite.