A Game of Decisions and the Turn of the Cards

I play small stakes poker online for extra money. I made four hundred last month and another hundred so far in March. I enjoy doing it and it passes the time, and there's always the lure of hitting a big jackpot that eases the drudgery and uncertainty of my unpleasant job and our one-income household. Every day I live with the certain knowledge that we're just scraping by. The rear end of the Vista Cruiser is making an ominous noise and my wife is wearing a wedding ring with a fake stone. I want to do better. Like an athlete with a talent for breaking free on the off tackle slant, poker is my dream, my way out of the ghetto.

Mass media gives a lot of people elusive dreams. There are plenty of athletes who never make it, and plenty of poker players scuffling for a buy-in. In my case I don't dream of a big final table under the tv lights and a pile of cash sitting there on a tray festooned with a glittering bracelet. I just want to outlast the field in an online tourney for a few extra hundred, or six or seven thousand in one chunk, a windfall out of nowhere. It could happen. I finished 38th in a field of 2100 the other night after work, busting out with AK all-in before the flop versus an ace and six offsuit. Six on the the river for a hundred thousand chips, about 35 times the blinds and good cushion to the final nine. The six blinked up, after three and half hours of grinding and careful decisions, and some donkey hauled off with all my chips, congratulating himself on his bold move. Nothing I could do or say. I could have blasted him in the chat that crawls below the game, but what's the point?

A writer named Jesse May once said that poker is part skill and part luck, and the chief part of the skill is how you manage the luck. You have to assess your chances, and when you're playing with clarity, your opponents. You have to keep yourself on even keel when things defy probability and your perfect logical assessment falls stone dead on its ass to a death card on the river. You have to keep yourself from impulsiveness or frustration. The big stack calls a raise in early position with king-eight suited, a piece of trash, and walks all over your pocket jacks. You know he's calling with a rag. He has more confidence with his rags and calls with them to the river, and no amount of maneuvering or logic or hope can keep you from busting to this guy, who always hits his hand and always has enough, except when you fold some marginal beauty that would have notched him to double up. I'm always leaning the wrong way.

I'm beating the game for steady but unspectacular money just based on persistence and a knowledge of the fundamentals, but at this rate I'll never get out of poker's minor leagues. I have days where the game breaks my heart, where it gets me screaming at the screen of my laptop like a deranged crack addict who just lost the forty bucks he stole from his brother. The game torments me and punishes me for inattention or lax decisions. When I'm playing good they outdraw me and when I'm out of line the cards fall red when I'm black and leave my stomach in a knot. Even when you're making a profit a tournament usually ends with a hand you lose, and in a four hour session there are 250 hands and most of them you'll lose. Good starting cards draw three rags. The best hand gets counterfeited. Just now I went all in with a king and queen and some clown called me with a queen and a ten. He's a three to one dog, more or less. I flop a king and now he's in a world of hurt. But a jack falls on the turn for a gut shot straight and he busts me. In the turn of one card I go from second place money to third, and every one in the circus parade of donkeys dances madly to the calliope at my expense. It's maddening. All morning long I've looked at running flushes and miracle outs, and I've lost ten bucks despite patience and sound decisions and intelligent raises and folds. Boldness and stubborn stupidity have won out every time. I win money, but there's a lot of suffering along the way.

My wife's getting tired of my bad beat stories and sniveling. Somehow I have to let go of the compulsion to expect everything to be logical or fair. Just now I got short stacked and plunged all-in with nine-eight offsuit, figuring two live cards first in in late position was better than waiting for the blinds to devour me. I got three calls, a bad sign for a rag just trying to pick up the blinds. The flop came a jack, an eight and a four, and one of the big stacks bet three quarters of the pot. The rats all scurry into the muck. I'm cautiously elated when he turns over two red sixes, half expecting a six on the turn or the river. He misses, and suddenly from the brink of extinction I have four thousand chips, thirteen times the blinds with 600 to go to the money. I might eke out another small win or get on a rush and make the top 200, stay alive till eleven. Tournament poker is a game of survival and avoiding traps. For the best players it's a game of creativity and aggression, but for me it's a grind and a slog and taking my lumps till I catch a break. I keep doing it, because money won is ten times as sweet as money earned.

There's a cost to it though. I don't get to the gym enough, and I hardly ever read a book. For a variety of reasons my wife and I have sex maybe three times in a month, and it's a heartbreak to realize she doesn't have any fire for me anymore. Like that old country song I miss the old days when we were crazy in love, before him and the hurtful fights and the regrettable words. In poker and in life I keep grinding along, trying to stifle my small worries and moments of failure, hoping to choose the right time to go all-in. I can usually get my money in with the best hand, but you can't control the outcome of each successive confrontation. Deep down I fear I'm not a lucky guy. Or maybe I'm just not smart enough to win the big money. I need to win a big jackpot, boost my confidence and take the pressure off. Once you win one your outlook changes. You have a little cushion and lose the self-defeating caution that leads to mediocre results. You start making the bold gamble at just the right time. And those hands where you get burned don't have such a devastating effect on your psyche. I have to learn to let go of the small defeats and play for the long run. But I can't let go of the nagging realization that in the long run we're all dead.