Ace-Queen Works for Assassinato

A player in the cutoff seat opened the pot with a raise to 1,000 to start the action. Next door, Vadim Shlez re-raised to 3,100 on the button, drawing a quick fold from the small blind. In the big blind though, Alex "Assassinato" Fitzgerald wasn't so quick to act. He capped his cards, hit pause on his iPod, and slipped his headphones off one ear. Double-checking that he had the action right, Fitzgerald eventually elected to call, folding the initial raiser. Before the player's cards were even fully in the muck, Fitzgerald said, "I check," in the dark.

Heads up then, the flop came out {K-Spades}

. Action was on Shlez, and he opted to check behind. The turn card brought the {4-Diamonds}

and a raise of the eyebrow from Fitzgerald. He reached for chips and dropped 4,100 of them onto the table with a loud rattle. Shlez quickly made the call, and the river brought the {5-Diamonds}

. Both players checked this time.

"Ace-queen," said Fitzgerald.

"You have ace-queen? Show."

Fitzgerald did just that, clumsily flipping over {A-Spades}