Hoist By My Own Petard

When I came home early from poker Friday night, my wife kindly asked "what happened?".  This falls under the category of rhetorical questions as she does not want any explanation of poker hands, so I looked at her and said, "I was hoist by my own petard".  She had a quizical look on her face so I asked her if she knew what that meant.  Now, Helene is an educated woman.  Truthfully, more so than me, having attended the same college, University of Missouri, but having the advantage of actually going to classes and paying attention.  She majored in journalism, later switching to education and eventually completing the classes for her masters degree.  Plus she reads more than me and watches jeopardy religiously, so, let's just say she is well educated.  However, I was an English major and participated in some serious Shakespeare study.  Well, at least I took the class and read most of his stuff.  Hell, I even attended one play in college but unfortunately consumed a large cup of an alcoholic concoction we brewed up in a trash can called, most appropriately "quivering death". Its main ingredient was grain alcohol.  I don't remember which play, anything in it, who was with me, or how I got home.  I do remember that when we returned, the music was playing loud and everyone at the party was passed out or assumed dead.

What is a petard?  It is a bomb designed to blow a hole in a wall during a seige.  You can read all about it in wikipedia.

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So, back to "hoist by my own petard".  According to wikipedia, it is a phrase taken from William Shakepeare. He wrote "hoist with his own petard" in Hamlet. The word "hoist" is the (now archaic) past participle of "hoise", the earlier form of the verb "hoist".^[3][4]

In the following passage, the "letters" refer to instructions written by Hamlet's uncle Claudius, the King of Denmark, to be carried sealed to the King of England, by Hamlet and his schoolfellows Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The letters, as Hamlet suspects, contain a death warrant for Hamlet, who later opens and modifies them to refer to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Enginer refers to a military engineer; the spelling reflects Elizabethan stress.

There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,

Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,

They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way

And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;

For 'tis the sport to have the enginer

Hoist with his own petar'; and 't shall go hard

But I will delve one yard below their mines

And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet,

When in one line two crafts directly meet.

After modifying the letters, Hamlet escapes the ship and returns to Denmark. By "hoist with his own petar" (literal translation: "cause the bomb maker to be blown up with his own bomb"), Hamlet means he is metaphorically turning the tables on Claudius, whose messengers are to be killed instead of Hamlet. Shakespeare's use of "petar" (flatulate) rather than "petard" may be an off-colour pun.^[5][6]

This is what happened in the poker game.  Down to 14 players from our starting 38, I had just moved to another table.  I was short-stacked with around 1900 chips and blinds at 300/600.  When the UTG player raised to 1200, I defended my small blind holding A/10 by shoving all in.  Easy call for the big stack.  I was pleased and a little surprised to see him turn over K/10.  It is always nice to be holding the dominating hand.  The board delivered no surprises, and I was doubled up.

The very next hand, I was on the unraised button and found my second pair of the entire night, 7/7.  Now, I am not a big fan of small pairs, and 7's qualifies as that, however with 7 big blinds and only the SB and BB to beat I know how to play them.  So, my second all in is met with the same player calling with....wait for it......A/10.  Do you see where I am going with this?  There is an ace on the flop and I am out of the tournament......hoist by my own petard, beaten by the same hand that I had beaten him with.

Oh, and one more thing, my wife served a new dish earlier that evening, General Tsao's cauliflower, a vegan dish, delicious but with the side effect of giving me serious gas.  Yet another reference to Shakespeare's quote.  Was that too much information?  Whatever.