Nowadays, I tend to stick to playing free poker online, but years ago one night during a poker tournament, I got lucky and won an event and quite a bit of money. When the smoke cleared, it was 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., and I got paid my $1,000 in prize money. I felt great, but I had one small problem. Even though I was staying at the Four Queens, I didn’t have a safe-deposit box there. I did, however, have one at the Horseshoe, which I kept all year long. It saved me the time and trouble of obtaining a safe-deposit box every time I came to play in a tournament at the various casinos in Vegas.

So, not wanting to keep about $1,000 in my pocket, I knew I had to walk across the street to the Horseshoe to put my money in my box. Nowadays, that wouldn’t be a problem, but as I said, at that time there were lots of undesirable characters inhabiting Downtown, and let’s just say that there was little or no security..

I thought I was ok, until I left the hotel and made my way on the street. It was the early hours of the morning and the streets were naked and very very dark. Realising that I didn’t have a lot of choice but to walk the one block to the other hotel I just pulled myself together and started to make my way to the Four Queens.

This was the point that I was wishing I was playing free poker online rather than being out in the streets like a crazy man!

As I turned a corner, I came across two huge guys looking a little rougher than I would have preferred and they seemed pretty drunk and out for a bit of fighting action. Then they spotted me, I knew this was just my luck, especially as there was nobody else in sight and I was well outsized and out numbered.

As I kept walking, they approached me as if they were going to block what was left of the sidewalk.

When they got within a few feet of me, one of the guys asked, “Hey, you got a couple of dollars?”

Not about to inform them of my win, I had to come up with something pretty quick before being beaten to a pulp, so, I took a chance and drunkenly squared up to them shouting ‘Don’t **** with me… I have just lost $25 in there!!!’. The two guys didn’t know what to do and actually looked quite bemused as they parted for me to walk through them.

A few steps later, I turned and loudly shouted another expletive at them. It was a great spur-of-the-moment bluff. Oh, I could have said, “I don’t have any money,” or given a dozen other excuses, but I don’t think that any of them would have worked quite as well as what I did. The bottom line was that these fellows wanted no part of a guy who could be that angry about losing 25 bucks.

It had to be the best bluff of my life, because I am here today retelling the story. If that bluff hadn’t worked, well I’d be lucky to be even playing free poker let alone big money!

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