all in -- draft 1

Here is the completed first draft of All In. I realize the language changes significantly from the start to the finish, so I will have to find some way to fix that as I edit.

-------
All In

It’s cold. I’m not, however, surprised by this, and I’ve come prepared for the harshness of the hostile and dark winter air. The poorly made and scratchy woolen knit beanie affixed to my head rests slightly tilted to one side as it infuriates my scalp. My coat is large and heavy and exceptionally warm in any weather, and in evidence of this, tiny beads of sweat begin to stain my shirt at the pits. This isolated stretch of land and the solitary stump amidst too much flatness to which I am walking is always cold whenever I come to it. I often joke with those I see here that the cold is a half hearted attempt at divine intervention to prevent us sinners from entering this godless church.
The walk to the front door always seems the length of an eternity, despite its relative shortness in actual distance. The grass alongside the cracked concrete path is patchy and mostly a deadish yellow. Not the kind that couples sit on in spring, and not a place you’d find children playing, or men and women together eating burgers and drinking cheap wine. This is no one’s home. And yet…
The building is a depressed brown. No windows let passersby see in or allow lonely occupants to see out. There are no words on the lightless marquee, and the only source of light, a single incandescent bulb dangling by its socket on one side of the large front door, its cord crucified to the doorframe, flickers as it sways slightly in the enveloping frigidity.
This is no one’s home, and yet here I am. The lost souls inside were there yesterday, and the day before, and they’ll be there tomorrow and the day after, and the same is true for me. This is not home, but it pretends to be something similar. The men and women beyond the metal double doors are not my relatives, and they are not my friends, but they are my brothers and sisters in arms, fighting for their dreams of tomorrow. Not fighting with guns and bombs, but with clubs, and diamonds, and hearts, and spades.
The wind cuts at my eyes, and I quicken my pace to the front door. The intimidating slab of grey at the end of the narrow path opens outward. I take hold of the handle, and turn. A sudden wave of warm, stale, and cigarette clouded air attacks my face as the cold wind seems to push me in. I close the door with a resounding thud that forces eyes to turn my way from the many circular felt-covered tables scattered across the floor. The inside of the building is markedly different from the outside. The air is warm, and the bright lights are many. Friendly pots of off color plastic foliage hang lazily from unfriendly metal hooks on the ceiling. There are no clocks, no televisions, and no radios. The low hum of the players is the only sound populating the space.
As I enter, Frank is seated atop a wooden dinner table, with several sets of red, green, blue, and black poker chips and a tarnished metal lock box. My eyes shift from wall to wall, making sure I make my apparent amateur discomfort known to the lookers on at the tables before me. My hand in my pocket jingles my car keys. There is still time to leave. To go home to my family, to my wife and child, who think I’m still at work. I could easily walk out the door. No one is forcing my hand except for me. So why am I here? I don’t know. But I’m here, so-
How much is the buy-in?
Hundred, even.
I don’t really need to ask. I know it’s a hundred, even. It’s always a hundred, even. I take out my wallet and rummage through its contents. I count out the bills and place them in a nice neat stack in front of Frank and his lock box: two twenties, four tens, two fives, and ten ones; a hundred exactly. I can feel the hungry stares of the sharks on the back of my neck as they plan out their next meal.
Frank shakes his head subtly and offers a thin smile as he hands me a multicolored stack of chips. Frank knows me, so he knows my game. I pretend to be the guppy, new to this part of the pond and naïve about what dangers lie in wait on the sandy bottom. Each step I take, each glance of my eye is well practiced and designed to give me an edge over the lesser sharks of the bunch. This tactic won’t work against many of the more experienced players, but an edge over some is still an edge, and in this game, any advantage is welcome.
What table?
Frank, without looking, makes a lazy gesture with his hand in the direction of the playing floor. Any table will do at the start of the tournament. I’m hardly a blip on anyone’s radar anyway, and sitting at a table with the night’s winner would afford me the same odds as being placed with the night’s first loser. In theory, anyway.
I carry my stack of clay poker chips with me to the nearest table with an unoccupied seat. As I sit down, I purposely drop my stack, scattering the chips on the table.
Oh, sorry.
No harm done.
The first to speak is a balding forty-something with a pair of ostentatious sunglasses covering a third of his bristly face. He gives me a forced smile, showing a set of yellowing teeth. Sunglasses no doubt thinks himself a regular pro in relation to me, and that’s how this tactic of mine works. I find the over confident ones and slowly but surely eat away at their stack of chips until they realize too late that I’ve done this before, and then it’s on to my next victim. It usually stops working after the second time, but like I said: any advantage is welcome.
Sunglasses helps me gather up my chips, and I give him a smile in return.
Thanks.
Sure. You be careful, now, son. Another slip like that and the sharks’ll be all over you.
I’ll be careful. Thanks.
Sure.
With a wink that I can just barely see behind the black plastic of his glasses, he sits. Making sure to take obvious note of how the others at the table have stacked their chips, I neatly arrange my multicolored disks in towers of five chips each, and then put them in a tidy row in front of me. The others at the table, including Sunglasses, observe me, but say nothing. Frank stands from his table and blows a whistle he had stowed in his pocket. It is time to begin.
No limit, Texas hold’em, blinds starting at ten and twenty, doubling every ten minutes. Pay out to the top nine, with the ninth getting his money back, and the first getting forty percent of everyone’s buy-ins. It’s a smaller than usual crowd tonight; only forty some odd players. With any luck I’ll be home before my wife goes to bed, with some inexplicable extra cash lining my pocket. But luck is a harsh mistress to rely on.
There are two people you need to watch out for when you’re playing tournaments like this. The first one doesn’t have a name. He always sits directly across from you. He never smiles, never frowns, and he never loses. He stares at you with unreadable eyes, and never gives away his hand. He doesn’t need stupid gimmicks, like good luck charms or giant sunglasses to take all your money. He’ll clean you out without saying thank you, and without so much as a victorious glance in your direction. And then you’re out, and it’s time to go home and explain to your wife, mother, children why you’re late and a hundred dollars poorer. He’s your biggest fear, and simultaneously your highest hope. He’s the one you want to become; the one that other people fear and respect. More importantly, he’s the reason you go to these out of the way card rooms late at night in the middle of nowhere. He’s the hope of glory and a better tomorrow that the down-and-outs cling to as their reason to wake up every morning. But no player like that exists anywhere. He’s really an itch in a place you can never scratch, but you always try anyway.
While it is this specter from a terrible and wonderful dream that brings you to this place, it is the infamous Lady Luck herself that keeps you here. She’s always standing there, behind your chair, urging sweetly and quietly in your ear for you to pay to see the river, because after all it’s just one more card, and she knows for a fact that the other guy doesn’t have the flush that presented itself on the turn, and your two-pair is the best possible hand on the table right now. She’s the really dangerous one to watch out for. She’s the one who says, “It’s okay. We’ll get him the next hand. That was just a fluke. You’re really better than him; than all of them.” It’s not that you can’t leave. You don’t want to leave. With one hand on your chip stack, and the other on your crotch, she keeps you in your seat, primed and ready to see the next card.
Frank’s whistle sounds, and the blinds increase for the fourth time. I had some good luck with the cards so far, and won some pretty good hands. I managed to put Sunglasses all in, early on, at the fourth hand, taking him out of the game. When we turned our cards over, he took his sunglasses off and with a peculiar nonchalance, tossed them onto the table in front of him. For the first time, I saw his eyes, and I felt a painful twitch of compassion. Suddenly he was no longer just my opposition, but he was a man, much like me, who just wanted something better than what he had, and had run dry of ideas. He showed no emotion as he looked from my pocket nines to his king, jack, off suit. Not a bad hand under normal circumstances, but I was showing a full house against his two-pair, and he was all in. The river came and was help to neither of us. Without a word, he stood up from his chair with the heaviness of all the possible excuses he was going to have to give his wife when he got home. As he turned to leave, Rabbit’s Foot, another player at the table, pointed out that he was leaving his glasses behind.
Keep ‘em.
I couldn’t watch him any longer, because the next hand was already being dealt. No rest for the wicked, I guess. Sunglasses was the first to go home tonight. A few more hands passed. I won some, and I lost some. And then I forced Rabbit’s Foot, then Cowboy Hat, and then Unlit Cigar all in; the eighth, thirteenth, and fifteenth to go home tonight. Now, forty minutes in, the blinds are eighty and one-sixty, and the tenth place player just left. We’re down to the final nine.
My usual tactic worked unusually well against the small fry, but now it’s time to get a little more serious. Seated at one table, the last nine of us eye each other over. I know most of them, but some are newcomers to this place. Newcomers are always dangerous, so you have to keep all your senses working in order to glean any kind of hint at their playing styles. I’m not very good at reading the tells and all that, so when I get to this point in the game, I play conservatively for the most part, folding at more hands than I usually do, and going in only when I have something good.
I recognize Headphones, Keychain, Pocket Watch, Silver Dollar and Robert. Robert owes me some money, that’s why I know his name, and aside from that, he doesn’t have any gimmicks that he brings to the table. Like I said before, none of us are family, and none of us are friends, but the regulars, that’s including me, all know each other to a certain extent. Last week, Robert asked me if he could borrow fifty dollars to play. “Think of it like an investment,” he insisted. “If you win tonight, you’ll just get it back anyway.” I knew I’d probably never see the money again, but I was feeling uncharacteristically generous that day, so I gave him the money, and made him write out an IOU on the back of a cardboard coaster. I told him that I wanted to see it every time I saw him. Now, without so much as a thank you, Robert tosses me the coaster with a fifty dollar bill rubber-banded to it. I smile at him, and without looking at me, he smiles back. He’s my toughest competition at the table, other than the three unknown newcomers. He plays fast and loose, much different from my own playing style. I’ll have to watch out for him.
The newcomers end up not being particularly good, and are the first of the nine forced home. The others follow suit and as Frank’s whistle blares for the eleventh time of the night, and the blinds are raised to a frightening level of ten two-forty and twenty four-eighty, the third place player takes his winnings from the lock box and exits the building. It is down to Robert and me.
I have the unfortunate position of being the short stack by nearly twenty thousand chips. If I continue to play conservatively, Robert could easily end up taking all my money by consistently raising the bet before the flop is dealt. And there he goes. The first hand of the eleventh round, he bets double the pot without even looking at his cards. With a sly smile and a knowing twinkle in his eye he nods at me. I see that I have literally the worst possible pocket in the game, with the least statistical chance of coming up with anything good: two, seven, off suit.
I Fold.
I know what he’s doing, and he knows that I know, but it’s not time yet. As the cards are collected by the dealer, I close my eyes and pray to the faceless and nameless gods of this forsaken place. The man without a name is sitting across from me. His stare is indelible on my forehead and he’s going to win if I keep playing like this. Lady Luck’s grip on me stiffens and her silent whisper in my ear gives me a temporary boost in confidence.
You’d better start playing.
He tells me what I already know. The dealer deals to me and then to him. I’m the small blind, so I am the first to make a move. I have pair of pocket tens. I know for a fact that if I call, he’ll raise, and if I raise, he’ll call, so, to stay in, I have to raise. I can’t afford to be wrong, so I raise double the pot just to be sure. He looks at his hand for a long time before finally calling me. Is he unsure if he should stay in, or unsure if he should raise higher. The flop is king of clubs, three of diamonds, and seven of spades, and it gives me nothing. I knock once on the table. Check. He looks at his cards again, and then looks at me. I can see the gears behind his eyes working to figure out what I have. Looking back at the flop, he squints his eyes and taps the table with his finger. The next card, the turn, is the king of hearts. I now have two-pair, kings and tens, a dangerous hand to rely on. I put in half the pot’s worth of chips from my stack. Robert smiles and throws his cards at the chips in the middle of the table. A small victory for me, and I can breathe again.
The back and forth between Robert and me continues well into the fifteenth cry of the whistle. The small blind is thirty-two seven-sixty-eight, and that’s a third of my chips. On the table is a flush draw, three and seven of clubs with the seven of diamonds on the flop, and the queen of clubs on the turn. I have in my pocket the five of clubs and the king of clubs. It’s Robert’s turn to play. Without saying anything, for a long time he looks at me, no doubt calculating the odds in his head. He probably has a flush too, and he most likely thinks that I have one also.
How much do you have there?
He nudges his head in the direction of my chips. I take longer than needed to count out my stack.
Ninety-eight three-oh-four.
I’ll put you in for half.
Okay. I’ll call.
The river is the two of spades and does nothing for me, but could potentially be a problem if Robert has a two in his pocket. Without any hesitation, he checks. This worries me. I don’t know what he’s planning. If he has something good, he could be trying to check-raise me, or maybe he really has nothing. He gives nothing away as his eyes bore into my skull.
What do you have?
Two, seven, off suit. You?
Ordinarily, that would be an excuse to let out a little chuckle, but now, with a pair of twos and a seven on the table, two, seven, off suit actually gives Robert a full house against my king high flush. Is he lying? There’s no way he would go in on two, seven, off suit. No sane person would.
Full house, huh?
Did you get the flush?
Maybe.
Cool.
I have a really good hand. A nearly impossible hand, but, if he’s not bluffing, so does he. What do I do?
You know what you need to do, then.
He’s right. I do. There’s only one thing to do.
I’m all in.