Volume 30, Number 9 · June 2, 1983
Two-Eyed Jacks
By Roger Sale
The Biggest Game in Town
by A. Alvarez
Houghton Mifflin, 185 pp., $13.95
It is the spring of 1951, and I am in the basement of a college dorm playing in an all-night poker game. At the end of a five-card-stud hand I have an ace, a queen, and the low cards showing, and I have a ten in the hole. My only remaining opponent has a jack and two low cards showing. It is, for us and for me especially, a big pot, with about $25 in it before the last bet. I 'check,' i.e., pass up my chance to make a bet, and my opponent bets $10. I raise twenty, and he folds, laughing. He had been bluffing, and I, assuming he had something like a pair of jacks to make his bet, had been bluffing too.
Review, 2566 words
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