You have what now?

Today was a good day, despite the bad beat story I'm about to tell you. I played about 7 hours of 20/40 at Bay 101 and brought home somewhere north of 1700 dollars in profit. I was absolutely on top of my game, making excellent reads, saving bets, and extracting maximum value from my opponents. The deck was also cooperating, which pretty much made for smooth sailing the entire day...except the 30 minutes I played 40/80.

I'm at a fantastic 20/40 table and look over to notice the must move 40 game is...well, better. It's 5 handed at the moment, and as I'm watching a player I know only as WTK takes a seat in the middle. I once said to Hammerin' Hank "I've heard stories about WTK" he simply licked his chops while walking over to the 40 game with WTK in it and said "It's all true. All true and more." The other players in the game weren't very good either, so I decided to suck it up and play some short-handed 40/80.

My first hand I take the big blind and am dealt K9. It folds to Abe, a friendly dealer who refers to me as Cousin (I do the same). he raises from the small blind and I call. The flop is something very dry, like 448 or some such, and I call his bet. He checks the turn and I check it right back when another blank comes off, but I river a King. He doesn't even call my bet though, so I suspect I might have been winning the whole way.

The very next hand it folds to me in the small blind and I raise it. WTK 3-bets it (he has...two cards) and I call. I flop a gut shot at broadway and call him. On the turn I still have Ace-high, but against this guy it might actually be good, so I call one more time. The river brings a blessed Queen, and I do in fact make broadway. I get in a check/raise, and he cries as he calls (I guess Ace-High wasn't very good). I'm over 500 to the good in 2 hands.

Then the following happpens:

I raise black 7s UTG (in what's a 6ish handed game). Only Sin, the small blind, and Cousin Abe, the big blind, call. The flop rolls off:

764 with two hearts. Sin check/raises me and I 3-bet instantly. Sin is an aggressive player, and is one of the reasons I'm in the game. My 3-bet will not dissuade him from check/raising again on the turn, and I have enough hand to 3-bet him again if he does this.

The turn is another 6, giving me basically gin. Basically. He checks, I bet, he raises, I 3-bet and he says "Oh...Pocket 7s?" and calls. To the river.

764-6-8, with the 4, 7, and 8 all being hearts. He checks, I bet, he raises again, and I call only (pocket 8s actually make perfect sense for him to have) and he rolls 65 of hearts, for a straight flush. I am dumbstruck and take my 20/40 seat when it's called 15 minutes later, down 7 dollars, deciding that if that's going to happen, so be it.