True Confessions: My Wife is a Filthy Slowroller
When you are in a relationship with a significant other, as much as you love them and care for them, there are times when you can’t help but be perturbed by something they do. When you have been in a relationship for years and years and years, it is easy to get perturbed by a lot of things, but in the end, the little things don’t really matter. As they say, “don’t sweat the small stuff.” But poker ain’t no small stuff. Poker is serious business and transgressions, even by one’s future husband or wife, should not be taken lightly.
It was the early part of this century and I was in my tender 20’s. I hadn’t begun my career in the poker industry and I don’t believe I had even discovered online poker yet. My girlfriend, Jen – now my wife – and I were hanging out with friends one weekend, just doing your casual hanging out stuff like grilling, having some beers, and just shooting the shit. I had a casual $5 buy-in game with the guys in this group, so we decided to start one up, inviting the lady-folk to join in if they would like.
A couple of our better-halves did, including Jen, who still barely knows a damn thing about poker, even though I’ve been doing this for twelve years. Suffice to say, considering, I didn’t know anything about poker beyond the basic rules, she knew jack shit. But hey, that’s the fun of messing around in a card game with friends for no money – you can have a blast while looking like a dotard.
We played all sorts of game variations before one of the guys suggested one that I had never played before. It was Five Card Draw, a version of Jacks or Better. On the first hand, you could only win with a hand of a pair of jacks or higher. If nobody had a qualifying hand, the pot stayed in the middle and we moved on to another hand and more betting. This hand, though, the qualifier for a winning hand was queens or better. Then kings or better, then back down to queens, then jacks, and then back up.
It was a bit of a counter-intuitive game, as typically, you would think the hand requirements would get easier as the game goes on, but not in this game.
We played the first hand, nobody had jacks or better. Second hand, nobody had queens or better. Third hand, no winner, as was the case with the fourth hand. The pot already way past its swelling point, we played through the initial betting round of the fifth hand, one which required jacks or higher to win, drew our cards, then bet again. I had nothing, so I folded. Interestingly, though, several of my friends, including Jen, stayed in.
My buddy Cliff was proud to turn over his cards, announcing that he had a pair of queens. My friend, Joe, the one who organized our cheap $5 boys club games, smiled and said, “Ah, I have kings!” as he flipped over his cards.
Jen then turned over two of her cards and said, “I have jacks…”
Joe proudly began dragging the massive pot toward his end of the table. As he did so, Jen turned her other cards face up, looked at them, and piped up, “Oh, and nines!”
Silence. Joe froze, then stood up halfway so he could get a better view of Jen’s cards. I looked at Jen, the future mother of my children, and she appeared confusedly proud. After a couple beats, we realized what had just happened and the table erupted in bewildered celebration.
What the fuck. MY GIRLFRIEND JUST SLOWROLLED THE SOUL OUT OF JOE’S BODY.
Joe thought he had won the hand, his kings better than Cliff’s queens and Jen’s jacks. But not only did he not have the best hand, little five-foot tall, poker innocent Jen stopped him mid-scoop and snatched his joy away. She took money (yeah, fake money, screw you) out of his hands.
A hauntingly accurate re-creation of my wife’s slowrolled hand
At the time, I found it hilarious. But now? As a self-proclaimed member of the poker community and a professional in the poker industry, I should have broken up with her right there. I should have taken the car and driven home, making her call a cab or bum a ride from one of our friends. She committed one of the ultimate poker sins. She slowrolled a dude. She slowrolled him!
My wife has given me two wonderful children. She is the sweetest person I have ever met. She just took care of the kids for two days while I went and played pretend as a background extra in a movie. She is probably the only person on this planet who thought to herself the first time she saw me, “Damn, he is cute. I need to meet him.”
But the more I think about it, the more I think it was a mistake to marry a slowrolling heathen like Jen. I said our kids our wonderful, but as they grow up, what will they become? Slowrollers like their mom? I am concerned.
I can overlook things like my wife’s inability to cook a proper meal or her commandeering of 80 percent of the bed when she is more than a foot shorter than me or her stereotypical lack of knowledge of most things electronic or tool-related, but this slowrolling…it’s utter bullshit. I should have stood up to her back then as she emotionally bludgeoned our innocent friend.
Is it too late to do anything about it? Am I too far gone at this point? Should I just file the divorce papers on Monday, or should I say nothing for the sake of our children and just teach them in secrecy about the evils of slowrolling?
I am nervous just writing this article, frankly, because of what my wife might do to me if she sees it. I mean, she slowrolls, after all, so she obviously has no conscience.
Then again, she doesn’t read anything I write, so she likely won’t ever be privy to my outpouring of repressed guilt over never having stopped the madness.
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