[AlanBostick]

It's the Oaks Club in Emeryville, Calif. I'm fed up with getting shellacked in hold'em, so as a long shot I start a list for $20-limit lowball. The brush isn't encouraging, but amazingly enough a game gets going after about an hour. The game is the Northern California format, with a single $20 betting limit; blinds of $5 (from the dealer -- yes, it's player-dealt!), $5, and $10; before the draw the opener can only open for $20 (later players can raise, but you can't open for a raise); it's ace-to-five, straights and flushes don't count; the deck has a joker that plays as the lowest card not otherwise in your hand; after the draw players must bet their sevens or better, or forfeit the post-draw action. Yes, that's right, it's poker like my granddaddy used to play in Gardena!

There are two players (not in this hand) who are canny high-limit action players who really grok lowball, four elderly gentlemen whose distance from death's door is much shorter than it used to be, and me. It's been ages since I've played California lowball, and I am resisting the temptation to raise in position deuce-trey-seven-brick-brick and draw two to my apparent wheel.

I'm under the gun, and I've just been dealt 98742. If I'm playing it, I'm pat. (Break and draw to an 87? Draw two to a seven??) Pat nines are can be troublesome, but against the elderly-gentleman crowd they can be profitable.

I decide to play, and open the betting. Across from me, an old guy on oxygen raises. Ruh roh. The dealer, another elderly gentleman, calls, but the big blind folds. I think for a moment, and then reraise. Oxygen calls, and so does the dealer.

I rap pat, Oxygen draws one, showing the nine in his hand as he discards it, and the dealer draws two(!).

After the draw, I check, and the two other players check after me.

I think I played this hand terribly, but I wonder what other people think.