Poker Articles

Mr. Fudge Sickle
By David Hench
(All Rights Reserved)

We were having a little friendly game of $20-$40 Omaha with the usual mixture of scufflers, saps, con men, sharks, and the like. The typical lineup. I considered it kind of self-evident that I was one of the sharpies in the crowd. I had on my Horseshoe jacket, my Mirage hat, and had my lucky 1953 obsolete Golden Nugget chip on display to protect my hand. I mean, what does it take to be the favorite?

So we're going down through there playing every hand like you're supposed to in Omaha, just seeing what comes on the river and who makes the nuts. Then everybody cusses the dealer except the winner, who stiffs him. Just your typical Tuesday night game, right? Not so fast.

There's a guy named "Cadillac Jack" in the game who's not typical at all. In fact, he's a real piece of work. He's the guy who first sold the Brooklyn Bridge to some unwitting investor -- I think it was his father-in-law. The guy paid him $20,000 down and $1,000 a month for life, and the friggin' guy still thinks he owns it. He's never missed a payment. I'd hate to hear the sales pitch "Cadillac Jack" put on the poor guy.

So anyway, you have to be careful around Jack in general, and you gotta be double careful when he has his nose open in a poker game. He'll play every hand to the end - blinding, bluffing, bulling the game, whatever it takes. So you have to go with him or he'll steal you blind. He may have absolutely nothing or he may have the stone cold nuts, but he'll just keep pouring the chips in there and going over the top regardless. That puts you in some pretty dicey situations. After he's bulled most everyone out of the pot, you might be left calling very weak on the chance he's stealing. And you might get embarrassed.

And so it was, with me donning said Horseshoe jacket, Mirage hat, and obsolete Golden Nugget chip, "Cadillac Jack" completely embarrassed one of the coolest Omaha players of our generation. (That would be me.) I got involved with him in a hand, everything went wrong, and it ended up with two aces on the board and me busting out all my draws, and left with two pitiful pair.

Cadillac was over there jamming the pot like a man possessed -- like he does regardless of what he has when he's on tilt. I had to ask myself a question: Am I going to let him steal it, and then show it to everybody and laugh? I can't afford to have that happen with all these fancy gambling clothes and trinkets I'm sporting; it might hurt my reputation. I made a very hesitating, deliberate call, hoping to hear the "Take it" one always hears when he catches a bluffer. You know, a little speeding ticket for the Cadillac.

So I made the call and everybody waits to see who will win the show dog pot. Obviously it's supposed to be me, because it's well known that I'm an expert at Omaha, and Cadillac is a maniac. He hesitated for a minute and looked kind of surprised I had called, so I got my hopes up. But then just when it looked to everyone like I'd caught him in a bluff, he said something I truly had never heard before. "Mr. Fudge Sickle," he said, as he slowly rolled his hand out of the hole. Four aces. The whole table burst out laughing that I had looked him up on the hand, and that he had made such an outrageous comment.

I still don't know what "Mr. Fudge Sickle" means, only that it ain't good for the home team. But I thought it was kind of inconsiderate of him to make this joke at my expense, with everybody watching and all. So I tried it back at him a few times when I got the nuts on him, calling it "Mr. Fudge Sickle" as I rolled it out, but it never worked like it did for him. The timing just wasn't there, and everybody just groaned. There's no time like the first time, and I'll give Jack credit. Score one for "Cadillac."

So if anybody knows what "Mr. Fudge Sickle" is or has ever heard a monster hand referred to in that manner, drop me a line and fill me in. I hadn't heard that term before and don't know its origin. It might be coming out of the old school, from back when "Cadillac" himself was a whippersnapper, ages ago. Or he might have just come up with it on the seat of his pants, in which case I'll give him extra credit for imagination. You never can underestimate a guy who's been selling shares in the Brooklyn Bridge for forty years, doing it successfully, and who actually invented the racket.

I might be in over my head a little with this guy. But if he keeps playing every hand, I've got some medicine for the snake oil salesman himself. Funny thing, he's a hell of a seven-card player, but he just goes berserk at Omaha. Imagine that. Whoever invented this Omaha ought to get three dollars out of every pot of it ever played!