Inexorable Turn of the Cards

The clock on the screen says 1:14 AM. I'm staring into the display with the fevered glare of the truly insane. My opponent is taking his time to decide whether or not to call my bluff. It's just the two of us and the match has gone on for four hours. Finally he throws down his cards and I rake a pot that means the difference between elimination and a precious victory. The chair-hopping half-strut that I do only accentuates the feeling of adrenaline pouring through my veins.

I play a fair amount of poker, as some of you already know. It's such an engaging game. I've been playing it for years, since the old college days when we'd play for hours with laundry money. We'd play nickel-ante and quarter max bet. It was such a simple time. If you'd won, you'd come home with your hands smelling with the sharp tang of metal. I always loved that odor, the smell of coins. Why does money have such an evocative scent? It's been said that the religion of America is money. I can believe it, money comes with its own incense!

Poker is something that's so easy to play now. The recent boom and TV exposure has really increased the number of outlets you can try your hand at. Here in town there are four companies that bring poker tournaments to bars. Seven nights a week you can leave the house and play cards for free. Prizes are pretty pedestrian, chip sets, card markers and playing cards. My wife always tells me to "win lots of t-shirts" when I go out to play because there's always some point when they give away a $1 t-shirt. You can see the business model in this, of course. You get 50 guys in a bar playing poker on a Monday night, they're going to increase your business. So by the time you've won that $1 t-shirt, you've spent $20 in alcohol and food. Not me, of course. I'm the guy who drinks one diet soda and gets refills all night.

There's a tournament this weekend that I'm co-hosting. This is our 14th tournament. We've got hosting down to a science and I like to think that we're successful at it. 14 tournaments is a pretty good barometer of success. Of course, people are so busy that it's hard to get the tournament to grow. Even though we have regulars we're still stuck at 17 being the most people who've ever played. At one point we thought we could get 36 players. Now I realize that idea was a pipe dream, who would want to play at something so crowded and unwieldy?

I've won the thing twice. So far, I'm the only person to do it. I'm hoping that this weekend I can make it three times. I think I'm a pretty good player, but I know there are players who are better than I am. It's a fact of life; no matter how good you are at something, there's always someone better. I'll just do the best I can and try to sneak by under the radar, that's the way to win.