Some poker related fiction

I write stuff. Some people seem to like it. Mostly dark comic stuff about being a public defender in rural West Virginia. These are not those stories. This is the stuff I wrote about poker. and figured someone else should see it as the chances of me publishing any of this are pretty thin and my usual readership could give two wet slaps about poker.

This first one is the opening scene from a novel I'll probably not finish. A bit of character development. The novel isn't about poker; the poker is more a parallel deal to foreshadow and illustrate how two lawyers come to considerable grief.

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Crackhead the Squirrel glimpsed between his fingers at his hole cards, seeing a two and six of different suits. He wanted to fold. He knew he held nothing, but once the first player raised ten dollars and another reraised forty more Crackhead saw his hands reaching for his chips. He was transfixed as his hands cut out two five chip high stacks of the red five dollar chips. He wanted to fold, but Crackhead could merely look on with muted horror as his hands completed a call, pushing the stacks of red across the betting line.

Everyone folded around to the initial raiser. He sighed, and pushed all of his chips, three hundred dollars or so, across the betting line.

"Raise all in to Three Hundred twenty six dollars," said the dealer after pausing to count the chips. "That is two hundred seventy six dollars more."

The player that made the forty dollar raise quickly folded, pushing his cards forward , a look of mock horror on his face.

This left Crackhead, and his cards, cards that could scarcely be worse. He looked down at his remaining two hundred fifty dollars sitting in front of him. Again, he knew he should fold, but all that money out there made him wish he had a real hand for once. Then he started to think that maybe the pot was large enough to make gambling worthwhile. He would be betting two hundred fifty dollars to win a pot that would be about three hundred dollars on top of his bet. He knew that someone making an all in raise after a raise and a call was almost certainly not bluffing, not that it mattered seeing he couldn't beat a bluff.

Crackhead the Squirrel wasn't his real name or anything. You get nicknames in poker rooms, mostly because out of a regular playing pool of several hundred players too many of them are named Tom, or Bill, or whatever, so anything unique, no matter how unflattering, could be the basis of a nickname allowing for more efficient identification. Like maybe a guy named George hits the bad beat jackpot. So when that information is relayed, the response is invariably, "which George?" If George is really tall or fat, or went through chemo treatments for cancer, George is from that point now "Fat George" or "Cancer George," or whatever.

Crackhead's nickname was a bit more involved. He never smoked crack, as far as anyone knew, just that he was really skinny and had a twitchy, nervous energy that had him constantly getting up to smoke, or just wander around. So some people started to refer to him as Crackhead. Other people likened him to being like a dog that just spotted a squirrel, as he often would be sitting at the poker table, and suddenly his head would dart up, and off he'd go in a flash. So they called him "Squirrel," because "Dog That Acts Like He Just Saw a Squirrel Like In That One Movie" was too contrived and cumbersome even by poker room standards

At some point, some wit combined the two nicknames and it stuck, although most people used the shorter "Crackhead" except in situations where the more complete and formal "Crackhead the Squirrel" was useful as a form of emphasis.

Time is a funny thing when you are torturing yourself over making an obvious fold. What is ten seconds in your mind is a minute to everyone else, sort of like general relativity, except that instead of time dilation being connected to speed relative to an observer and the speed of light, it is measured by the crappiness of a hand in relation to how badly the little voice in your head wants you to gamble. It is a period of mourning; working through the stages of grief, denial that it is a bad call, anger that someone raised, bargaining that you can call just this once and if you get lucky you won’t get this far out of line again, depression because the gamble monster that lurks in your brain is sad when it doesn’t get to gamble, and then acceptance that you have to surrender and move on to another hand.

Thing is, sometimes the gamble monster derails this and before you get to acceptance your chips are in the pot and you are stuck in the bargaining stage.

What seemed like thirty seconds to Crackhead was four minutes to everyone else, and Crackhead was aware that thirty seconds was about twenty nine seconds longer than the reasonable time needed to decide to fold deuce-six to a massive raise. This just made it harder to fold, that somehow the time spent in struggle to fold was itself an investment that would be abandoned if he surrendered the hand.

He thought about the time he represented a guy in a mental hygiene hearing who insisted he was immortal. The guy claimed the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics meant that any time there was a chance of his death his consciousness would enter the parallel universe where he would survive. Which was fair enough, it was a weird theory that almost made sense, a great example of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing.

Having an odd theory about the fundamental nature of reality isn’t enough to get you put away, except that the guy was constantly testing his theory by running across the interstate during rush hour, jumping off bridges, and that sort of thing. His latest test was running at cops and shooting them with a realistic looking water pistol. That, to be sure, will get you put away for a bit.

At some point testing fate makes you an unacceptable danger to self and others, Crackhead reflected that maybe calling this raise with these cards was a little too close to that line.

Meanwhile, the clock ticked.

Most of the other players didn't care about the delay, taking the time to stretch or flag down a waitress. Evil Cletus was not involved in the hand, but he was stuck about five hundred dollars and was understandably anxious to get the game moving. So he fixed Crackhead with a death stare, now and then slamming some chips to the felt and rolling his head around in a show of irritation. Nobody really cared about what Evil Cletus thought. He had a violent opinion about all things big and small; ignoring him was the only sound option. Cleetus wasn’t nicknamed “evil” because he was sour and easily annoyed; rather there were two guys in the room named Cletus, and the other one (Good Cletus) was a nice old guy who looked like he should be doing oatmeal advertisements. Evil Cletus was the kind of skinny creepy guy that always seemed to be wearing the same windbreaker, and who blamed all his life’s failures on people who weren’t male, white, rural, heterosexual, protestant, and who worked with their hands.

Crackhead continued through the mental blender. He could picture himself victorious, stacking all those chips, his three hundred plus the three hundred fifty dollars of pure sweet profit. His six of clubs and two of hearts would combine with the five community cards to make a straight or two pair to beat the pair of aces or kings his opponent likely held. Even better, maybe his opponent held something like an ace and a king, and he could win with a pair of deuces. He could victoriously tip the dealer ten dollars and grin to himself as the other players stared at him like he was a shaman, bending laws of probability to suit his whim. He would surely win, against all odds, if he could just summon the will to demand it.

Most of Crackhead's brain was aware that the feeling was nonsense, that someone like his friend Elbow wouldn't dream of calling with such a hopeless hand. Elbow understood the odds, and understood that the human soul, deep down inside, hated the odds, hated the mathematical realities, and loved the swashbuckling feeling of slamming down the worst hand fully expecting, no, fully knowing that the gods of chance and the randomness of the deck would protect you. Or maybe just that the wave function would funnel his consciousness into the parallel universe where he wins the pot, wins every pot, and ends up the richest man in that universe because he never, ever, loses again no matter how reckless he plays.

Crackhead found Elbow’s emotional control a little creepy. He never seemed to be really happy, or really sad, or really angry. He was level all the time. Maybe too level.

So there sat Crackhead, knowing the smart move was to fold, but aware that he'd feel like a passive failure because he knew he was going to win, and walking out the door with the two hundred fifty he would have left after folding would feel like a loss of the four hundred dollars already in the pot. It was just a matter of time for temptation to win the fight, so Crackhead figured he just needed to fold and go smoke. That was the smart thing.

Then again, if he was being smart, Crackhead wondered why he called the first fifty dollars. At least now if he put the other two hundred fifty in the pot he would never have to fold, he would just wait for the dealer to count out the pot and then deal the five community cards, cards that would grant him victory if only he could demonstrate faith through a giant act of foolishness.

Even before he finished processing that last thought, Crackhead heard his own voice weakly saying "Call." He pushed out the rest of his chips. As the dealer went about making the pot right and returning the excess chips to the other player, that other player turned his hand over: the two black aces.

This didn't surprise Crackhead in the least, but Crackhead was too embarrassed by his meager holding to show his hand. Even with six hundred fifty dollars in the center depending on his deuce-six outrunning a pair of aces, part of Crackhead wished he would lose so he wouldn't have to show his hand. He could just fold his garbage and lie about having queens or jacks or something reasonable. The idea of proudly slamming his hand down and asking the dealer to give him a straight was gone now, replaced by the realization he would lose either way. Either he loses the money, or his pride.

Crackhead could do nothing but watch the dealer determine his fate. The dealer, as is custom, dealt three cards out, and then turned them over. Crackhead was horrified to see that the card on top, the door card, was an ace, giving his opponent three aces. However, as the dealer spread the three cards out, she revealed a three and a four. Crackhead brightened a bit. All he needed was a five so that his two and a six would make a straight. Just one lousy five, thought Crackhead. Sometimes when you shoot a realistic looking water pistol at a cop, you get arrested rather than shot in your center mass. It happens.

The dealer then turned over a five. Crackhead jolted upright and turned over his hand. "Yes!" he exclaimed, feeling that six hundred fifty dollars and victory over the laws of probability was well worth the ego hit. His heart was racing, his synapses firing over the sudden reversal. His pupils grew larger, and he fantasized about how he was going to use that pile of chips to bully everyone at the table and go home with at least fifteen hundred. He’d use this win to build a bankroll and eventually play poker for a living. All because he had the guts to listen to his instincts. To hell with Elbow and all his math.

Before anyone could fully react to Crackhead's good fortune, the dealer revealed the final card: another five.

It took Crackhead several heartbeats before he realized he'd manage to lose in every way possible. Not only did that second five give his opponent a full house to beat his straight, but people in the poker room would be for weeks, if not forever, gleefully relaying the story about his managing to get three hundred bucks in the middle with deuce-six offsuit.

Crackhead sat for a few seconds, his mind somehow both spinning out of control yet totally blank. The adrenaline dump he was experiencing reminded him of that dream where it feels like you are falling. He felt totally nailed to the chair, and knowing he needed to get up and walk away made the feeling even more intense. He was broke; he’d give anything for some money in his pocket so he could rebuy to maybe create the illusion that the money he lost with his absurd play wasn’t significant to him.

“Are you rebuying?” Asked the dealer.

Crackhead found it hard to reply. He shook his head side to side.

The dealer nodded, and started to deal the next hand. She’d seen this sort of thing a million times, and while technically Crackhead was supposed to either buy more chips or get up from the table, she knew that glazed look on his face meant that everything was really hard for him, but in a minute he’d manage to get it together. As she took in the initial bets and started to deal the flop, she saw Crackhead slowly stand up, pause and walk away.

“Seat open on table four!” the dealer shouted towards the podium.

Crackhead winced when he heard those words. It almost seemed personal; a public announcement of his failure both as a poker player and in life. He wanted nothing more than to be out of the poker room, out of the casino, anywhere but here or his apartment. First, he had to go find Elbow. Elbow would immediately understand that Crackhead was broke and wanted to leave, and would be fine with it. For all the times Crackhead found Elbow’s evenness about poker annoying, he appreciated that Elbow’s mindset made him the rare poker player that wasn’t psychologically nailed to his chair.

He walked over to Elbow’s table. Elbow had put on his jacket and was almost done racking up his chips.

“You finished?” Crackhead asked.

“I guess. I heard you yell out, and then heard a happy shout that wasn’t you.” Elbow shrugged. “Once I heard Rachel yell that the seat was open, I sort of figured it out. I’m kinda hungry anyway.”

“You win anything?”

Elbow shrugged again. “I’m up about four grand,” he said evenly.

Crackhead nodded. Elbow was playing pot-limit omaha, a game Crackhead knew little about except that it usually involved violent swings of fortune. He was pretty sure Elbow was winning quite a bit overall, but Elbow would report a three grand loss with the same even demeanor as he would a three grand win, and would be vague about his overall performance. Elbow kept records though; he was the kind of guy to pay his taxes, and Crackhead was pretty sure he made more money from poker than he made as a public defender.

“Let’s get out of here,” Elbow said, carefully lifting up a stack of three racks of chips, “I could use some food.”