“I call,â€? I said, and watched her smile falter. At least she was good enough to understand, even if belatedly, that she had made a bet on the river that only a better hand could call.
The rule in poker is that whoever bet first on the river, if called, has to show their cards first. It was irrelevent; I already knew her hand, so I immediately flipped over my set of jacks.
Before she bothered to flip up her pocket aces, in the attempt to show the table that she’d had a strong hand and hadn’t just been a donkey, I simply said “Good game, sorry to crack those aces,â€? and proffered my hand for the traditional poker bustout handshake