Tales from the Floor
Dipstick Dan receives wake up call
By Johnny Coldeck

The topic of Foundation Man Frank came up in conversation the other night, and it brought to mind one of the classic stories from the distant past. Now Frank was one of those hard-core poker players who would stay at the table as long as the ATM continued to spew out bills. Married, with three young children, Foundation Man Frank would often be in the game for several hours before it was discovered that his family was outside, waiting in the car.

This story is not about that; it’s about one of the times he left his wife and kids at home and hitched a ride to our little room.

Before Johnny Coldeck began working at the cardroom, he played a little poker there. On one of those epic nights, Johnny Coldeck, a player to be named later, and Foundation Man Frank ended up playing three-handed in the wee hours with all the chips that random players had left on the table in the melee of the earlier action.

The dealer, whom we call Mother Theresa when she is not listening, had been dealing alone all night long, apologetically taking a break to use the bathroom every four hours or so. We began to feel bad for her, but always planned on allowing the dealer to have a smoke break “after a couple more hands.” This is the story about how Mother Theresa got a well-deserved break from dealing a three-handed poker game.

Around three-thirty in the morning, Johnny Coldeck and Foundation Man Frank got mixed up in a big hand. With about $800 each in their respective stacks, a raising war started on the river on a rainbow board of Q-8-7-2-T. It seems that the ten on the river had made Frank a set of tens (why was he still in the hand?) and gave Johnny the nut straight with his J-9 (why was HE still in the hand?).

When Johnny shoved the remaining $600 into the pot on the river, Foundation Man Frank became Frank the Tank. After ten minutes or so, he turned over his three tens and asked if he could call his wife, who was at home, sound asleep. This seemed like a good opportunity to give our dealer a break, and we were all intrigued by this interesting development, so we agreed.

During our eavesdropping, we all discovered that Foundation Man Frank had dutifully called his wife earlier in the night and told her that he was going to play a few more hands, then come home, as he had enough money in front of him to fix the family car. Now he was faced with losing it all or doubling that amount, and wanted his wife in on the decision.

After a twenty-minute conversation, she asked to speak with the player to be named later and ask his opinion. By now, we were all in a jovial mood, so the player to be named later got on the phone and proceeded to inquire what she was wearing, side-stepping any questions about what he thought her husband should do with the hand.

The end of the story is anti-climactic, really. Frank got back on the phone after another fifteen minutes of listening to the player flirt with his wife, made the call for the rest of his chips and lost all his car-repair money. Mother Theresa got the longest dealing break of her life. Johnny Coldeck, having run down a gut-shot straight draw, lived up to his well-deserved reputation of bad poker play and was penalized by having to give Foundation Man Frank a ride home. We still don’t know what his wife wears to bed, but we know she is a pretty good sport about these things. The player to be named later now owns the cardroom.