Today is not your day, and tomorrow doesn't look good either

Sometimes poker is a fragment of an old saying on a tee shirt, "Today is not your day, and tomorrow does not look good either." All you can do is maintain the proper mindset, make good decisions, and let the chips and cards fall where they may. It takes skill to make the right raises and calls. It takes luck to make them turn out the way you wanted them to.

It's quite a ride, watching the chips wash into the pot like the roll of the surf. Sometimes you feel like you're in the pipeline gliding along with 30,000 pounds of ocean gliding over your head. It's exhilarating in a way all its own. Waiting, waiting, studying, getting on your board with just the right lean and tension in your thighs, feeling the strong pull, knowing that it's time to shoot ahead. Time slows down the way it does in all absorbing activities.

I was in late position with a good stack, about 10,800 in chips with the blinds at 250 and the antes at 25. It folded to me and I decided to put a move on the pot, steal the blinds with a three times raise and jack-four suited, knowing I'd dump it if I got reraised, knowing I had position after the flop if I got a call. The big blind called, a weak-tight player with about the same-sized stack. Okay. Now we see a flop.

It came out three rags, six-four-deuce rainbow with one heart, a good flop for me really. He'd never put me on a pair and I could probably win it right there. He checked. I bet three quarters of the pot, 1550, a continuation bet that I would have made whether I missed or hit. Right away he snap-raises all in. Hmmm, I thought. That flop hit you that hard? I didn't put him on a big hand, something terrifying and catastrophic that would end my tournament. If he had had a big pair he likely would have reraised me preflop. If he held a medium pair like eights nines or tens he would have bet the flop, not wanting to give a free card to my king-jack or whatever the hell he thought I had. His play hadn't been that sophisticated for a fancy trap. Most bets mean what they say they mean, and this bet was weird and erratic, especially the quick pace of it, and I knew, somewhere in my chip-surfer's heart, that the guy wanted me to fold. That's all it was. He was putting a move on my pot, putting me on continuation bet with two big cards, and he had a little something and wanted to pick up a cripple by representing a big scary hand with an erratic illogical bet. If he was holding the set or the overpair his raise would have been for half his stack, or he'd wait till the turn to hook me deeper. He doesn't want a call. That's why so much. My fours, my meager little fours, were good, and if I called him I would be a favorite for 21000 delicious beautiful tournament chips ahoy with a cold glass of milk as close as my refrigerator.

I was in the pipeline. I've never been in a tournament with a clearer read on a hand. It felt good to be thinking so clearly. I knew this guy. I'd been watching the game attentively and I had a good feel for how he played, and I was sure this was the right time for a close call. He checked-raised all-in because he put me on nothing, and the little something I had was good enough to win. I was sure of it, or at least sure enough of it to make the play. I pushed the call button, and now my tournament life and a chance at a few hundred dollars was in the center of the cyber-felt. Call, both players all-in.

He turned over three-three. Most low limit tournament players get enamored of wired pairs, and will defend them beyond all logic. All-in check raise for twenty-one thousand, with six outs: two threes for a set or the four fives for a straight. That's all he had. I was right. I'd made a perfect call, and played the hand beautifully, using my position to create deception, inducing a big raise from an underdog hand. With his six outs in play I was about a 3-1 favorite to be among the chip leaders. Beautiful. Exactly what you hope for, exactly the situation you hope to create when you click on "register" and sit down with your bowl of cereal. Now the rest was up to the turn of the cards, the luck part.

The turn came a jack and now I had two pair. It looked better but didn't mean anything in the hand. He still had the same six outs. The two remaining threes would give him a set, and a five made him a low-end gutshot straight, the miracle draw that made him bet so crazy to begin with.

All this happened in four heartbeats. Things move fast in cyberspace poker, a hundred hands an hour. I barely had time to calculate the odds, and I was a little stunned when the five of clubs came off on the river. At first I didn't believe what I was seeing. I was thinking chiefly about pair versus underpair. I had to count it out, as the invisible hand of the invisible dealer shoved the cyberchips to the donkey: two, (three), four , five, six: the luckymotherfuckingsonovabitch had made a straight. My tournament was over. The donkey had prevailed.

Tournament poker is all about survival, and that's why it's such a compelling game. Although it looks good on TV you want to avoid being all-in, because any time you are you are one card away from taking out the trash and getting ready for work. Your tournament life, that slender stack of chips, is on the line. Ideally you want to accumulate so many that no one can touch you, but that rarely happens. You have to run really good, win a few critical confrontations, to reach the point where you can make decisions while everyone else is making plunges and stabs at the pot. Had I won the 21,000, I would have been there, in the comfort zone. I could muscle them sometimes and exploit their desperation others, getting in for a fraction of my stack and all of theirs, picking my spots, seeing flops and waiting for hands while they had to play crazy with their starting cards. In poker as in life, money begets money. The big stack can play position and push people around, force them to bad decisions, make them uncomfortable and get them leaning the wrong way. But most of the time you are somewhere in the middle of the dogpile trying to keep someone from gnawing on your hind leg, surviving and counting your chips, watching the blinds rise, hoping for a good play on your money, hoping to catch the right wave.

Today I lost. I made all the right decisions, including a critical one at the end, but in the end it didn't matter twenty cents. I busted out 3200th out of 8000 players, but I had a shot at beating them all. It takes skill to get yourself in the right situations, but it takes luck to survive them, and today I didn't survive. String together five or six wins in those 3-1 edges and you can make a final table. Lose one early and go home.

It's very easy to overdo the poker-as-life metaphors. I'm not that philosophical about it. I want to win, that's all. I want the day when things run my way, when I win the big hand and outrun one or two of my mistakes, and I win a chunk of money. I'd like to cash in for a couple of thousand and take my wife to a nice dinner and pay off a bunch of nagging bills, get out of the hole. I make enough month to month doing it that I'm ahead for the year, so all my pastime costs me is the time I invest in it, which admittedly is exorbitant given the modest return. What if I gave all those hours to something more worthwhile, say a comprehensive job search or a fiercely disciplined workout regimen, or writing a book?

That's a legitimate question. What would my life be without poker? I'd like to quit, but first I'd like to break through and have the right decisions turn out right, just one time, and make a final table for a chunk of money. It's unfinished business. I want the cards to turn my way, just to see it can happen. I can't explain it. Losing drives me crazy, and I don't want to quit till I win. I suppose that's the definition of an addicted gambler, but keep in mind I play for a few dollars at a time and maintain a winning record. A few hours a week I practice this discipline mixed with obsession. I'd probably be better off to chose another obsession, to apply my discipline to another purpose, but I haven't found one that engages me so much. There's nothing like riding the wave. I could just do without the wipeouts.

Glen Frey wrote a song in the eighties that explains it about as well as anything ever could. He was talking about drug smuggling in the days of Miami Vice but it's all the same. He wrote, "It's the lure of easy money; It's got a very strong appeal." Gambling has been around a long time, probably for the same reason. The Roman soldiers who oversaw the crucifixion threw dice for Christ's clothing. Travis McGee won his houseboat with a busted flush. With wry humor he named it for the moment. Gambling is the stuff of the seminal moment of history and light fiction. Every hand has its own story. Wild Bill Hickok got shot in the back holding aces and eights, the ultimate bad beat. Doyle Brunson won back-to-back World Series with a ten and a deuce. Sometimes legends are made and sometimes weapons are drawn, and lives can be changed forever or even ended.

In 1787, a young Beethoven came to Vienna to take lessons from Mozart and Hadyn. Suppose they'd taken him to a gambling house, and he started playing cards. He might have had his head down studying a hand when his Immortal Beloved came into the room for the first time, never noticed her red dress and the half-smile on her lips. All of his symphonies might have been unfinished.

Or, that night the cards might have turned different. Sure of his decision he'd look up just in time and announce his call. Her knowing smile would hit him like an electric charge of fate. The dealer would riffle the river card and set it down with a decisive snap, Beethoven not even looking, locked on her incredible face, the beginning of all his inspiration. "Queen of hearts," the dealer announces. Her card. The chips shoved toward him made a sound like crickets and looked as beautiful as a waterfall with a rainbow in the middle, as beautiful as her. Mozart and Beethoven win enough for a villa in Tuscany, enough to live in luxury in the fresh country air and compose to a ripe old age. The Beloved graces his balcony under the morning sun. All in the turn of a card.

Every night the cards reveal a destiny or deny one. One guy gets the cascade of chips and the other the bare felt of despair. Often the decisive moment defies logic planning and discipline. Van Morrison said, "It ain't why why why. It just is. It just is." Poker is like that. When the river card falls, it just is. For some tomorrow would look better if they avoided the cards altogether. I sometimes wonder if I'm one of those guys. Maybe I've had my head down too long and missed my moment, studying stuff and nonsense when I should have been listening to one of my wife's stories and memorizing her captivating face.