I was a bit surprised when Jake invited me back to his game. Maybe I hadn’t made as much of an ass of myself as I’d thought. Or the rest of them had been as drunk as me, and hadn’t noticed.
I asked him if I could bring my buddy Butch along. With him there I’d be more likely to behave. Jake checked with Mike. It was okay. They’d squeeze him in.
I didn’t tell him what Butch did for a living.
The game was in the back room of an arty little joint in the Village. The Dane wasn’t there. I was relieved. The rest of them were there. Jonesie, with a cowboy hat, two diamond earrings. Maybe he really was a famous actor. Andrea, in a black leather bustier and very red lipstick. She made me nervous, in a nice kind of way. High school nervous. Unworthy of talking to such an enticing creature.
Mike was in the captain’s chair, looking fierce in a shirt with Chinese characters that he claimed said ‘death to transgressors.’ Riverstreet, looking sharp in a blue pinstripe with thirties-style pleats. Straight Jake, all Armani and carrying a large black portfolio. Preparing a grant proposal, he said.
Early on, the banter was loose and the play desultory. Just a bunch of players having a good time. Butch fit right in. He always did. He was that kind of guy.
There wasn’t much check-raising, no big bluffs, at least that I was able to ferret out. And Drunk Jake stayed relatively sober.
The feel of the game turned when I took Drunk Jake for a big pot.
It was heads up. The flop came Jack of hearts, spade Ten, spade Three. I bet my Ace Jack. Pair of Jacks, Ace kicker. Pretty good hand. Jake called. The turn was a third spade. I bet, Jake put in a big raise. I called, feeling a little queasy about it. Jake’s confidence was palpable. He could have the flush. But the pot was big, he could be bluffing, and my Ace was the spade, so. I had a twenty-five-percent chance of improving to the nuts, the best possible hand, even if he hit the flush. I hung in. Swallowed hard. And saw that fourth spade hit on the river. Jake stared at it. You could read him like a New York Post headline. He knew that card could be big trouble. He looked at me. I smiled. He shook his head.
He checked.
I bet big.
He stared me down. He looked at me for a long time. Wondering. Calculating. Going back over the previous rounds of betting. Had I been getting the odds to try to outdraw him? If I wasn’t on a draw, could I have something big enough to have stayed in the pot? There was a Ten on board. I could have pocket Tens. Trip Tens was certainly enough to play with.
I was still smiling at him. He didn’t know if my smile was real or manufactured. I could just be happy, to have hit my Ace-high flush. But I wouldn’t want to show him that. So maybe I was bluffing, trying to make him think I had it. Or maybe I had it, knew that he’d know that I’d know that he’d know that I wouldn’t want to show it but might be bluffing, and was…well, you get the picture. Poker’s not an easy game.
In the end, he couldn’t take the chance. That I’d gleefully turn over a pair of fours while pulling in his money. If I had the spade Ace, he could say I was lucky. Outdrew him. If he folded and I didn’t have it, he’d look a fool.
He called.
I showed my spade Ace. He looked away.
Fuck, he said. I knew it.
He turned over his spade King Queen, threw them into the middle of the table. He got up, walked to the beer keg, drew out a pint into a plastic cup. Sat back down.
This was a new Jake. Normally he took the beats good-naturedly. He was drinking less this time. He wasn’t playing the buffoon. He was playing well. You could feel his ambition.
He wants to crush me, I thought.
I was game for the challenge. I knew it was foolish. Poker isn’t like high jumping, or tennis. You don’t draw on extra reserves of energy and suddenly transcend your opponent’s performance. There’s too much luck involved. Like that last hand. I’d played it right. And over the long haul I’d make money playing that hand that way. But on this night, this one iteration, that spade might well not have fallen. In fact, the odds were excellent that it wouldn’t. Four to one, in fact, a little worse. But tonight, it fell. And the other cards on the other hands for the rest of the night would also fall as they would, with no regard for anyone’s ambition or resolve.
But we’re all human. So Jake’s reaction to the beat wasn’t unusual. I didn’t hold it against him. In fact, I invited it. It pleased me. Because it was dangerously close to a tilt. When a player gets so angry at a beat or two, or three, that he begins to play irrationally, recklessly, making big bets against the odds as though to bully you out of the game, he’s on tilt.
You can make a lot of money from a guy on tilt.
But Jake wasn’t on tilt. Not quite. He was focused. Determined. He played cagily. Tight. But mixing it up a bit. Taking a small pot on a bluff, he showed me his Ten Seven off-suit. He wanted me to know I couldn’t peg him just for tight. A bit of unpredictability goes a long way.
But I outplayed him on that night. Caught him big a couple more times. I slow-played trip Sixes against his Aces. Just checked, called his bets. Checking and calling is bad poker, most of the time. And he should have known that I knew that. Had he stopped to calculate, he’d have known that I didn’t have the odds to be on a draw, waiting for a straight or flush card to hit. So my calling had to mean something else. The slow-play alarm should have gone off in his head. But it didn’t. I bet big on the end. He called, thinking I was bluffing. I won the pot.
More important, I won the ego battle.
He got darker after that. A couple of hands later I was looking at a small straight draw. I was in the big blind. Everyone folded around to Jake. He raised me in the blind. I looked down at a suited Seven Eight. A drawing hand. Not a good heads-up hand. But I felt like gambling. I was getting to see a pretty cheap flop.
The flop came Five, Six, King. Two clubs. I had a straight draw. But the flop had hit Jake hard. Or so he wanted me to believe. He threw in a serious bet, stared me down.
I just called. The odds said to fold. I only had eight outs: four Fours and four Nines. I didn’t have clubs. And pairing any of my cards wouldn’t do it for me. Not if he had the Kings. Or better. Or maybe he was on a semi-bluff. Had two clubs: nothing now, but enough outs to make it profitable. Because I would fold enough times. Add those to the times he hits the flush, and you’ve got a profitable bet.
I figured him for the Kings. It was just a feeling. But you learn to go with your feelings. Separate a hunch from wishful thinking. Too many times I’d argued myself out of a hunch at the table. Found out later I was right.
I didn’t see him on the semi-bluff. The bet wasn’t quite big enough. He’d have wanted me to fold without even giving it a thought. Especially in this aggressive mood.
Kings, then. Not a huge kicker. Not Ace King. He would have raised more pre-flop with that hand. I figured King Queen. I was almost sure of it.
Something about the situation felt just right. I wanted to fool with him. I flat-called.
A tiny flash of doubt crossed his face. More weakness. He didn’t understand my call. The situation would indicate a raise or fold. He knew I was doing something funny. But he didn’t know what it was.
I had him halfway there.
The turn card was an Ace.
Excellent.
I stayed calm. If he bet, I had him.
He looked at me.
He looked at me for a long time.
He pushed in another bet. Double the first.
Raise, I said, without a pause.
Goddamn, he said. I knew it.
He’d figured me for the Aces.
He folded his Kings.
Love them semi-bluffs, I said, showing him my busted draw.
He said nothing.
I saw in his eyes something that I hadn’t seen before.
Rage.
Butch leaned over to me.
Jesus, he said, careful. This guy could hurt somebody.