Pete made it to the final table with four players left in the game. Player A was chip leader with a about 40% of the chips in play. Player B had about 35% of the chips, Pete had about 15% and Player C had about 10%. Pete realized that the prize payout that night at the game was about $50 for first place, about $25 for second, and a couple drink chips for third place. After having survived playing through the field up to this point, Pete was determined to finish "in the money" and so played very conservatively hoping the either one of the big chip stacks would take out Player C or that, because the blinds were huge by this point, that Player C would "blind out". This is both a smart and dangerous way to play, as it poses risks that Pete could end up "blinded out" also. However, Player C went all in and lost to Player A and thus Pete had now managed to place third and win the lowest prize. However, it also left Pete with only enough chips to call one small blind and one big blind. Pete was now the dealer and got absolute trash for hole cards and threw them away. Next hand, Pete was now big blind and again received absolute trash for a hand and threw the hand into the muck. By this time, there was a crowd of people gathered around the table watching the game and remarking that Pete should've just put his little bit of chips in the pot and called with any hand and hoped for the best. So Pete said out loud as he placed his only remaining chips up as the small blind that "Well heck, Player A could get pocket Aces this hand and Player B could get pocket Kings this hand and they go all in and Player A could eliminate Player B and I would win second place with just a couple chips over Player B with his huge stacks." The crowd just laughed at how improbable that would be, especially laughing was a player previously eliminated from the game who was doing the dealing at this point in the game at the final table. Sure enough, Player A went all in, Player B called and Pete was all in already with just the blind and an off-suit 9 and Four in the pocket. Player A turned over pocket Aces, Player B turned over pocket Kings, Pete turned over his trash hand, the flop, turn and river helped neither player A or B or Pete and so Player A eliminated Player B giving Pete second place! As the dealer loudly exclaimed, "It's enough that the odds of that happening are so remote, but the fact that Pete called out exactly what was going to happen makes the whole event even more fantastic!" The players in the crowd talked about the event for weeks and months to other players at other games. And Player B was on tilt for an equally long time!
Petey