Sometimes, you just get lucky.

I’d been pretty quiet for the last hour– I’d only played 2 hands, and I folded both of them on the flop– when, finally, I looked down and found myself holding a couple of kings on the button. There had already been a raise and a re-raise, so I capped the pot before the flop.

The flop came rags: deuce/six/ten rainbow. There wasn’t much of a strait draw, and no flush draw… this was the perfect flop for my cowboys, or so I thought. There were two bets to me, and I went ahead and raised it from the button. Everyone folded except the player to my right, who capped it. At this point, I was almost certain I was up against a set– either tens or sixes. (I knew this because the raiser seemed genuinely annoyed that there were so many raises pre-flop, and almost laid his hand down: I was certain I hadn’t run up against aces.) I went ahead and called because it was just one more bet, and the pot was huge. Too expensive to lay down my overpair and be wrong!

The turn came another rag, and I called one more bet, figuring the pot was laying me fantastic odds if I was wrong about my opponent flopping a set.

Then, Glory Glory Hallelujah… a king on the river. My opponent bet, and I raised. (At this point, I had the stone cold nuts.) He looks at me for a second, and then says “You have pocket kings, don’t you?” I smiled, and he made a crying call because the pot was so big he would have been crazy to lay it down. He showed me his set of sixes, and I showed him my cowboys and dragged a huge pot.

He was annoyed at first, but then he said “Well, it’s not like you were going to lay down a huge overpair…” I reminded him that I was ahead before the flop, and he caught his 2-outer against me, only to have me catch MY two-outer against him.

Sometimes, you just get lucky.