Let’s Play Some Cards

WORM: You know what cheers me up when I'm feeling shitty?
MIKE: What?
WORM: Rolled up aces over kings.
MIKE: Is that right?
WORM: Yeah. Check-raising stupid tourists and taking huge pots off of them.
MIKE: Yeah?
WORM: Stacks and towers of checks I can't even see over. Playing all-night high-limit Hold'em at the Taj, "where the sand turns to gold."
MIKE: Fuck it, let's go.
WORM: Don't tease me.
MIKE: Let's play some fuckin' cards.
                                                -Rounders

Poker is a game for men. Make no mistake about that. You have to have the old bollocks. Bollocks and a good sense of perspective.

You need to be able to sit there in absolute surety that you’re 6-10 off-suited will make the nut. You need to be calm when you have two aces in the kick and that third one flops out. You need to be able to push all the chips to the middle and, as Kipling says, “risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss”. You have to fight and scrap and dominate and cool. You need to refrain from joy and fear and anger and suppress all emotion and feeling and urge…

Now that’s a tough gig and one not suited to all.

But that doesn’t send me into any spiral of worry or concern. The poker gig suits me, just like betting sports and swinging the old five-iron does. I’m not much good on working portable telephones or dealing pleasantly with fools but shoot me a couple of cards and the blood starts flowing and the pores lock up and the brain starts dealing with numbers and odds and cheap personal traits extraordinarily well…far better than an hour ago, by any count.

It’s not a fix I need on some form of tri-daily basis but one that really needs to be satisfied on, my young assistant tells me, a weekly basis. But she’s no doctor, nor a poker player, so her advice should probably be taken in context.

Nevertheless, I’ve locked myself into a weekly game to ensure all gambling instincts and senses of masculinity and mental alertness planes are maintained at rational and workable levels.

Each week, after a Wednesday afternoon of dealing with irate creditors and ill-fitting horn-rimmed frames and whooped up midweek whiskey abuse, yours truly and some associates of mine suck back the ice and head for an industrial suburb, which, for obvious reasons, cannot be named.

After winding through suburbs full of steel and dust and signage, we arrive at the desired warehouse, park to the side, ensure our rolls are full and intact and walk with single minded purpose past a signed door-“Jensen Repairs”-to the unmarked wooden door just around the corner.

“Shoulder…shoulder” I mumble irritably when The Bear, a poker associate with whom I have a long and profitable history, grapples awkwardly with the jammed door.

The Bear finally gets it open and we wander past a number of stripped down cars, the smell of oil and cigarettes filling the air, until we reach a square-twisted metal staircase. At the top, we walk down a long, thin corridor until we reach a re-done work shop, fitted out with felt covered tables and comfortable deck chairs.

“Danny Boy” yells Tim, one of my cohorts.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen…what an honour” retorts Danny every week, a smirk covering his pierced face.

We paid for our chips, drew our seat and started to get The Rush.

Now last Wednesday was not a lot different from most other Wednesday’s other than the fact I was cranked on some ethereal feeling of inevitable immortality that a Seattle Seahawks victory would give me. Well, that didn’t turn out all that well and looking back on it, the momentum I had probably turned against me sometime at this small warehouse in a nameless suburb somewhere in the back streets of a city that doesn’t really need to be identified.. The momentum was gone and so was I. I was shot like a rabid dog but just too stupid to realise it at the time.

An ability to sense the direction of momentum is a very important quality all good bettors have…and most of the time, when the pendulum swings against me, I gather my kick and head for bed because a bit of the old Rip Van Winkle is the only way to deal with a sudden and often dangerous shift in momentum.

But I couldn’t avoid the Super Bowl, just like I couldn’t avoid brutal defeat last Wednesday night. And the rest, they say, is history.

Seated between an old Italian gentlemen kitted out in pulled up white socks and grey slip ons named Mr Trigilione and a young skater named Todd, I was travelling well. I was playing tight and I was playing aggressive and had really built my stack up when…Boomtown!

Pocket kings.

Now pocket kings are the second best pre-flop hand in a game of No Limit Hold ‘Em. And I was in position. I was on the big blind, so pay day has arrived I thought as I sucked back on another Dunhill.

There were a few calls and then a raise by a tattooed gentleman across the table with whom I had not had the pleasure of meeting. But now was no time for formality…

I re-raised him and he pushed me all-in. Super.

“Turn them over boys” purred the spunky blonde dealer.

He had jacks. The old hooks. And his face went from the victory smile to one of disbelief. There were only two cards that could save him after three rags on the flop.

Then nothing on the turn.

Now I think we all know where this is headed….

There was a goddamn jack on the river.

It was a horrible beat and everybody knew it. When I reached across the table to shake his hand, he made the token apology. But I wasn’t really listening. I had entered some mental vacuum where words made no sense and all I could see was the Queen of Hearts yelling “off with her head”.

It was a bad loss but there was nothing that could be done. I played it correctly. Even if you do have the bollocks to play poker, you still have to understand the game or you’ll get stomped like a cockroach. You have to understand your odds and how many outs you have and what is a good and bad hand to play. You have to understand the difference between live and internet play, limit and no limit. You have to understand people and numbers and cards.

And if you don’t, playing won’t be all that fun because I’ve never really aspired to being a street urchin…and make no mistake, if you play poker and you don’t understand it, that’s where you’re headed.

You need to know when you’ve got the cards and you need to know when you’ve got your man and when you got em, you’ve got to go for the kill. But when you get beat, and you played it okay, you’ve got to suck it in, walk it off and realise that you had the odds.

Check to make sure your bollocks are in place and resume you’re seat at the table. We are here, of course, to play some cards.

And that, fellow card sharks, is that.