I have a similar story to this. When I was 19, I flew out to Vegas to stay with some online poker friends I had met at Turning Stone the year earlier and hang out while they were playing the WSOP. This was in like 2008, so back when live NLHE was still just chock full of fish.
I had a few things going for me here: I’m about 6’3 so at that age I always looked older despite having no facial hair. I had also played live poker before so it wasn’t like it was my first time ever sitting at a table. I heard some friends saying the cash room at the Rio wasn’t checking ID’s so I decide to get on the list and get called for a 2/5 NLHE game.
I buy in for $1k cash, get chips, and I’m off to the races. Win a couple small pots early, settle in, I’m there for like a half hour. I maybe have like $1500 in my stack when I hit still to this day the most insane live heater I’ve ever had. Set over set for stacks, flopped straight over top two for 250bb, winning every hand I play for monster pots for like 3 orbits straight.
Finally I win another huge pot with a massive cooler (which in those days was like I had AK vs. AQ on an Ace high flop and stacked someone) and I drag the pot and I have like $6,800 in front of me. I’m in the 9 seat this whole time. All of a sudden, the 1 seat says in a joking tone “Man you’re killing us. Has anyone checked this kid’s ID!!??”. I have never shit my pants in public (well once at Little League practice when I was 8 but that’s another story) but I think this is the closest I’ve ever come (again, as an adult). Thankfully the dealer just brushes it off, people just laugh it off as a joke and I just stack the chips and play the next hand.
I spend the next 4-5 orbits trying as hard as I can to make change for people, get rid of all of my small chips, convert chips to cash at the table as fast as I can. Meanwhile I’m folding every hand including this gem of a hand.
Straddle to 10, 2nd position opens to 40, someone 3b to 145. I look down at AK on the button. Not wanting to play any pots and just get out of there with as much money as I can convert to cash, I fold. A couple people call… 3-way flop with like $550 in the pot. Flop is… AK5 rainbow. I am just in the total whirlwind of “WTF is going on here” so I forget the exact action, but two guys get it in. The shorter stack has AQ. The guy with $3500 in his stack has… 55. Being literally scared of getting any $$ off the table and getting hauled out by security saved me $3,500.
I manage to get most of my small chips given away, walk away an orbit later with like $4500 in cash and 20 black chips. Hand the chips off to a friend who cashed them in, and I think it took me like an hour to get my heart rate below 100 bpm.
