I was at my usual stool at Flannery’s pub, but I was not in my usual mood. I was drowning my sorrows in a river of Kilkenny ale, looking for any way to forget about what had just happened to me and any escape from the reality of my plight.
I raised my hand to the bartender, to signal one more. He obliged quickly, setting down a tall, icy tankard of beautiful amber ale. Nodding my thanks, he smiled and trotted back to his other duties, his judgements kept to himself.
This was at least the fifteenth time I’d raised my hand, you see, and each time the bartender just smiled and sealed his lips to my plight. He knew there was a reason for this binge, for I usually raised my hand only once or twice after a normal day at the tables. Today was indeed different, and I felt the need to punish my liver and wound my soul as masochistic penance for my sins and failures.
My mind drifted back to the final hand, as the last card fell to the table. I was wired with a pair of Kings from the hop, but nothing had come on the flop or the turn to make me smile. At the river I was all in with my cowboys against my nemesis’ 8-9 of hearts. On the board sat a queen of spades, a ten of diamonds, a three of diamonds and a three of clubs. But I’ll tell you how we got to this point.
I had started off with a medium-sized raise, pre flop, and Professor Grip had called me icily. We were the last two in the game, and we had an even chip stack. Everyone started out with one hundred grand worth of chips. I now had 515 000 of it, the professor the other 485 000. It was crunch time, and it was tense.
The Professor was my nemesis, having taken me for almost my entire college fund when I was younger and vastly more naïve. A beanpole with wisps of dark, stringy hair, he was never seen wearing anything but black. His eyes were pools of nothing, soulless and daunting, and his mouth was a bloodless line, devoid of all emotion.
Steeling myself for the flop, I knew I had a killer, and that in a straight-up game, my cowboys were going to be tough to beat. When the flop came, I checked. I wanted to feel him out, not give too much at this point. I had the goods, and I wanted to get paid off.
His dark eyes bored into mine, sending chills up my spine. I kept a good face on though, didn’t betray anything of what I had. I’d worked very hard to rid myself of the tells that had spelled my college demise. Still looking directly at me, he pushed in a hefty bet of one hundred thousand. The blinds were 20000/40000, and a hundred grand was about a quarter of my remaining chips. Still, I felt confident enough to call him, knowing that my kings at this point could only be beaten by pocket rockets. His failure to raise me pre-flop suggested he didn’t have the cards to beat me at this point.
When the three of clubs came up, I had two pair but was a little wary. I thought it possible he may have trips, although I didn’t think he’d be betting a hundred g’s on a pair of threes. I decided to let him play it again, once more checking it over to him. I didn’t want to be too aggressive, and I thought I’d gotten a pretty good read on him by now. He tended to scratch his nose on the right side if he had a hand. If he didn’t, he usually would scratch under his chin. I was surprised that first of all I’d noticed this, and second of all a pro like him had let this kind of unconscious psychological tic slip past his amazing observational skills. It was unheard of for a player of his stature to have such a tell, but, perhaps, I was just much more astute now.
Just as I was crediting my new found ability to read my opponent, he threw a curveball at me. He scratched his left cheek. Momentarily panicked, I remembered my cowboys. Relaxing, I prepared for whatever he may throw at me. He bore into me again with those ebony eyes, the depths impossible to read. He threw in another hundred this time.
I paused, but only momentarily. It was down to the brass tacks, the make or break moment. I’d saved and saved for this moment, waiting for the time I’d have my revenge. I’d watched Rounders so many times I wore the DVD out, relishing my role as Mike McDermott and wanting so badly to stick it to MY Teddy KGB. I had played cards in places my mother would faint at the sight of, that I myself almost fainted at the sight of. I had done nothing with my free time but play cards since that moment. I had quit my full-time job to do nothing but play poker with the best players I could find, in the seediest games I could find. I had inherited a nice penny when my grandfather had passed, which allowed me my many early losses. It was then I began to save for this moment.
I built my knowledge, my stack, my reputation, so that I could gain entry into the Professors coveted million dollar game. The buy-in was 100 grand, and there were only 10 people admitted. I fought tooth and nail to become one of those ten. The Professor simply took my money and waved me away when I entered the game. He didn’t recognize me. I’d make him remember. Now, I felt, was the time. I knew what I could do, I knew what I had. I knew that I was golden.
Locking eyes with the bony, pale and parched face that had haunted my dreams for seven years, I calmly placed my hands behind my entire stack. “All in�? I said with a dreamy satisfaction, pushing my chips in firmly.
He studied me so hard over the next few minutes that I began to feel I was a specimen in a science lab, being visually dissected for my intricacies and weaknesses. Indeed, this is where the Professor portion of his moniker had come from. He’d been known to cause all forms of reaction from weeping to threatening straight on to actual violence with his probative glares. It wasn’t simply the glare itself; it was the unblinking, unflinching, unfeeling length for which it held you. It gripped you, right by the soul, and made you do rash things at the table, made you go on tilt when you first began the game. I had controlled my fear thus far, and I wasn’t caving in to his coldness any longer. He wasn’t immortal or infallible; he was simply a man, and an ugly, detached one at that. I met his eyes with equal fervour, and the battle was on.
He flipped his chips around his fingers with expert dexterity, making three of them dance at once as if synchronized by a choreographer. He suddenly clamped them down and drew his lipless maw back into a twisted leer. Snorting slightly, he pushed his chips in as well.
I immediately flipped my cards over onto the table with fulfilment, believing I had the hand won at this point. If so, my odds going into the river would be most agreeable. I watched as his skinny hand tossed his cards out. He’d need a jack to win, to make his straight. His odds were roughly 9 to 1 against*, and I was feeling incredibly confident, and more than a little surprised that he’d gone in against me. It was all up to the river. Would it cleanse me in the sweet water of salvation after all these years of wanting, of hoping to take this man down? Or would it rush up and overwhelm me, choke me and drown me in sorrow and bankruptcy? The odds were over ninety percent that I’d be saved, that my long and myopic journey would come to a close, and I would finally stand victorious, over the Professor’s broken and shamed personage, and reclaim my dignity and pride I’d lost those many years ago. I waited for the river to flow.
The river card seemed to hang in the air, suspended in time. The dealer had let it go too early, and it began its decent more than three inches off the felt. It never threatened to turn, though, simply hung for an instant, held on the tenseness of the moment and the strength of my dreams. Then, suddenly, as the Jack of Hearts floated down mockingly to the felt, making the Professor’s straight and crushing my spirit once again, my glass house nerves were shattered, the Jack of Hearts a fatal brick hurled with ruthless precision into my support beams. I lurched, and fell to the ground with a sickening, pitiful squeaking noise, my energy spent and my soul utterly drained. The eyes pierced me once more before I lost consciousness, finally awakening to find everyone gone but the owner of the club. He politely asked me to leave, informing me I’d been asleep on his floor for more than two hours now, and he’d like to go home to his wife please. I scraped up the pieces of my manhood I could still find inside myself and gave a heavy sigh, leaving the club. I knew as I walked I would never again see my nemesis, would never again have my shot at redemption. You cannot fail at redemption the first time; there is no second chance.
So here I now sit, raising my hand once again. The bartender brings over another tall, frosty companion. And thus the river still flows, long into the night, as an amber tributary forming the vastly deepening ocean of failure and despair that saturate my soul.

END

*Actual odds 92.86 – 7.14 as calculated on http://www.twodimes.net/poker/

Sir Smittius