"The Railbirds"

When I raise the first hand and collect the antes and blinds, there is a smattering of applause. “She’s good!” remarks somebody in the crowd.

I resolve not to let the intense scrutiny affect my concentration, but the spectators prove to be difficult to ignore. They feel they are a very important element of the poker playing process. They keep up a constant commentary on the action. “Looks like he’s gonna fold… pretty sure she has a boat… I bet he’ll come over the top.” It’s like being trapped in a room with Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten.

When I check my hole cards they all strain forward to see what I have. Phil has been constantly riding me regarding the correct way to look at my cards, and I always resist, feeling my way is good enough. His is too complicated. (Lay the palm of your hand diagonally across the cards so they don’t lift up, then make a tiny hole with your thumb and forefinger so you can peer through it, like a kaleidoscope.)

Now I fervently wish I had paid more attention to Phil. Time and time again I hear a whispered buzz behind me: “Psst… she was on a straight draw… she folded a black ace… I saw two hearts...”

Once, after I fold to a reraise, a guy flashes me aces. “You had me beat,” I say demurely, implying that I made a tough laydown.

“Boy, I’ll say,” a railbird remarks jauntily to his friend. “She had pocket fives.”

I am in a hand with The Kid Who Likes to Play Fast. When he was moved to our table he was forced to slow down a bit as his chip stack was slightly depleted. But now, thanks to making a gutshot on the river, he has most of my chips. And he is speeding again.

The flop, K-rag-8. I have A-8. The kid, I’m pretty sure, has nothing. I counter his continuation bet with an all in. When he calls, I realize my mistake. “I have a king,” he says almost apologetically as he languidly counts out his chips.

I know the drill. I stand up and start gathering my stuff so I can make a speedy exit.

“Honey don’t put your boots on,” twangs a Southern lady “It ain’t over yet.” Everybody leans over the rail breathlessly as the dealer burns and turns. “ACE!” they all yell in unison. And miraculously an ace comes. They have done scientific studies that say if you want something strong enough, it will materialize. And I firmly believe that. “Thank you,” I say gratefully as I sit down again.

“Honey, I told you not to put your boots on,” says the Southern lady smugly. “I knew that ace was coming.” They watch too much World Poker Tour. They believe in big drama and crazy suck-outs. And most of all, they believe the hero always wins. Because they’ve seen me in the movies, they assume I must be the hero of this particular drama. I wish I had that kind of faith in myself.

Another time I am bluffing a guy who refuses to go down. When the last card hits I am done with the hand. Disgusted with myself I am about to discard my cards when I hear a loud voice behind me. “Look at that! The only way it’s not a chop is if someone has an ace.”

I look at the board again. It reads 9-K-10-J-Q. The river has once again rescued me. I have a straight.

“I’m all in,” says my opponent sullenly. I look at him, contemplating the idea that he has me beat. If the railbird behind me hadn’t made that remark I might have given his move more credence, but the timing is a bit suspect. “I call,” I say, “Do you have an ace?”

He turns over pocket queens. “I should have pushed on the flop,” he says, annoyed. “I can’t believe that river.”

“Phew! So it’s a chop,” I say, tossing away my cards face down.

There is a ripple of agitation behind me. “Don’t muck your cards, don’t muck your cards!” trill the railbirds.

I snatch them off the table and turn around. “I didn’t,” I say confused, “I called him, he didn’t have an ace.”

“You can’t win unless you show your hand,” they say.

I turn to the dealer. “Is this true?” I ask. He concurs. Embarrassed, I show my eight-high, and claim my half of the pot. I guess I still have a lot to learn.

Finally, towards the end of the day, I have another confrontation with The Kid Who Likes to Play Fast. Through flush draws that get there, pairs that turn into sets, and just plain old fashioned stealing, he has become the terror of the table with a gigantic chip stack. I’m not doing so bad myself, but the kid is not making it easy.

The kid has already entered the pot. Nothing unusual there. He enters every pot. On the big blind I look down at A-10. For some reason I don’t reraise. I just call. I’m thinking if I hit an ace it will be disguised and thus more powerful.

Instead the flop comes Q-10-rag. All clubs.

I bet. The kid goes all in. All in for $800,000. His reasoning is…? That I will never call? That I’m spooked by the clubs? That I don’t want to go out so close to the end of the day?

Everybody goes to break. I am still sitting there. The kid sits there too. Calmly, like he has all the time in the world. The railbirds also remain in the cavernous, empty room, because, after all, this is the only show in town. There is no changing channels at this point. Everyone else is gone. The minutes stretch into an eternity, until finally, resentfully, I muck.

“I had you beat,” I say bitterly. “Maybe,” he agrees. “What were you? On a flush draw?” “I had you,” I repeat. “Well, I caught a piece of the flop,” says the kid walking away. “Not a big piece… but a piece…” I am burning. So he had a ten also. I had tens, top kicker. Why, oh why, didn’t I call? The railbirds trail shyly after me as I storm to the restroom. “That was a good laydown,” volunteers an old couple. I pause, looking for validation. “Do you think so?” I entreat. “He says he only had a pair. I think I had him beat.”

They shake their heads. “He wouldn’t jeopardize his whole stack on just a pair,” they say adamantly.

I feel a little better. When I exit the stall, the Southern lady is there washing her hands. “Let me tell you something, Jennifer,” she says. “That kid had you beat for sure. We’ve been watching him all day. He has a tell. When he’s bluffing or doesn’t have a good hand he flushes. He turns all pink around the nose and ears. Look for it.”

“Really?” I say, feeling a little better.

“Yep, and this time he wasn’t flushing. He was calm. He had a made hand.”

“He says he had middle pair.”

She shakes her head. “He had a flush for sure,” she informs me.

It is now the fourth day. I have never made it to the fourth day before. I don’t know what to do with myself. I wish I had the red Harrington book on final table play. I try to remember what it says, but all I can dredge up is a reference to some movie where monsters get bigger as they gobble up everything in their path. I don’t sleep well. Phil comes in at 5:00 in the morning. I can tell by the slow way he counts his money he had a bad night.

When I wake up again I am late. I run upstairs, only to discover the tournament has been moved. Since there are only 27 people left, we are in a smaller poker room. This one has bleachers filled with spectators, but a different type. Friends and family, financial backers and reporters. My motley crew of railbirds are lost in the crowd.

It’s starting to look like I am a shoo-in to make the final table. People are getting knocked out left and right. The shortstacks are starting to consult the payout structure sheets to see if they can move up a few notches before they are terminated.

We lose another player; now there are only fifteen of us. The Kid Who Likes to Play Fast (who is now the Kid With Too Many Chips) has been moved to my table. “Hey! It’s like yesterday!” he observes. “Except now I’m to your left!” I try to remember if that’s good or bad. I conclude (erroneously) it’s a good thing because now I can enter more uninvigorated pots.

Q-7 suited. Normally I would not play this hand, but secure in the knowledge that I am one of the chip leaders, I have idly let the game roll on without participating. I decide it’s time to steal a round of blinds. To my annoyance, the kid enters the pot right after me. Everyone else folds.

The flop comes K-J-7, two hearts. Something about the way the kid just called preflop, instead of raising, made me think he might have a legitimate hand. “I bet he connected,” I tell myself. I am about to check, when suddenly I can’t help myself. “There’s only one way to find out!” says a voice in my head. I bet 100 thousand dollars. He calls.

Okay, I’m done with the hand, right? He has a king or a jack. I put him on an A-K for some reason. Possibly a flush draw. Regardless, I’m done. I’m not going to dance with the kid any more.

The turn, a queen. Now I know I have the best hand. And hidden. From previous experience I know the kid loves to call and then suck out. I don’t want that to happen. I want to take the pot while I’m ahead, and not have a repeat of the other day when he decimated my stack by hitting his gutshot. I decide to overbet the pot to the point where anybody in their right mind would fold, even a rich bastard like this kid.

Carefully, so they don’t fall over, I move three tall stacks into the middle. 300,000.

“I’m going to raise,” says the kid. He matches my bet, pauses for a second, his fingers dancing over his pile, counting. “All in,” he says casually.

My face is flaming. Something has gone horribly wrong. I have been tricked. A third of my chips are in the pot. If I abandon them, I will fall back to the middle of the pack. I will be forced to scrabble and scramble with the rest of the group. I take off my sunglasses and look at him. He seems terribly calm. Is he flushing? I can’t tell. He looks kind of pink, but the light is weird in the room.

What could he have? K-Q? J-Q? Wouldn’t he have raised on the flop to shut down the flush? I know he doesn’t have a set. He would have reraised me preflop with a pocket pair unless it was sevens. But I have a seven, and there’s one on board. He doesn’t have sevens. Could he have a straight? My mind flickers on that possibility and instantly discards it. No one in their right mind would call a hundred thousand dollars on a gutshot. I think he’s bluffing. I think he thinks I’m bluffing, and he’s trying to outbluff me.

I glare at him. I’m tired of his ridiculous all-ins. I know he thinks I’ll fold. I want to get to the final table, don’t I? Everyone wants that. I see blurry sympathetic faces around the table. The other players know I’m beat. They wait respectfully for me to come to terms with that and move on. Suddenly I stand up. The room is spinning. There is a roaring in my ears. “Goodbye final table,” I say to myself. I close my eyes and open them. “I call.” I say out loud.

He looks mildly surprised. “You call?” he repeats. He turns over his cards. A-10. He has a straight. I don’t even have time to formulate in my head what the river needs to be for me to win, when it is all over.

I put my boots on, pick up my purse and stumble out of the room. It is very quiet, like someone died. When the others players busted out, there was a respectful ripple of applause as they shook hands and said their manful goodbyes.

With me, you could have heard a pin drop. On my way out of the poker room someone asks for a picture. “Sure,” I say automatically. As I smile mechanically, waiting for the interminable click of the cell phone, someone else comes running after me. “Jennifer, you’re dropping things. Apparently I am carrying my purse upside down. I think I should maybe go back and see if I lost anything else, but I can’t bear to go back there. So what if I lose a wad of hundred dollar bills with a rubber band around it? It’s worth it to keep going forward.

Now I realize it’s a very different thing to bust out when you are the short stack, and quite different when you are the big stack and nine seats away from the televised table.

I go in circles in the casino for quite a while. I can’t find the elevator to the rooms. When I ask people for directions, they just stare at me dumbstruck, and finally stammer out “You’re Bride of Chucky aren’t you?” When I admit it, they won’t let me go until I recite what other movies I’ve been in. Then finally, overcome by excitement, they point me in the wrong direction.

“Jennifer, Jennifer!” I hear a familiar voice. It is the Southern lady. “I’ve been looking all over for you.” I turn. She is running after me, panting. “I came late, just in time to see that hand. When you stood up I knew you were going to call. I didn’t know how to stop you. I wanted to yell out, ‘HE’S NOT FLUSHING!’ But I was afraid they would throw me out”

“Maybe you could have yelled “No flush!” I suggest dubiously. “Because there was a flush draw on board.”

“Right! Darn, that’s what I should have done. I wish I’d thought of that!”

I wonder dully if that would have jarred me from my stupor. Probably not. I was oblivious to everything. All I could hear was the roaring in my ears.

“I knew he had it!” the Southern lady was insisting. “He was too calm. And he was white. Didn’t you see that?”

I have to admit I didn’t. Apparently everybody else saw disaster in the making. All I saw was a kid who was bluffing. But anyhow, I thank the lady for her support, and ask her if she knows where the elevators are. She walks me to them talking about the last three days, and telling me how strong I played. It makes me feel a little better.

“You seem to know a lot about poker,” I tell her. “Thank you,” she says. “I plan to be a professional poker player one day.” And with that, she’s gone.

I am sad, and alone now. I wish I went out in a nobler way. My full house cracked by quads. My three flush counterfeited by a four flush. Instead I call off almost a million in chips on a hand that can be beaten by nine other combinations. Who knows why we do the things we do? It all seemed very logical at the time. Maybe I should have eaten.

I call my ex-husband, Sam. He is very sympathetic. He’d been following my progress on the internet. He is a little puzzled at how I could bust out with such a marginal hand. I try to explain. I tell him about the Kid Who Plays Fast, and the gutshot, and how I couldn’t find my Harrington book so I didn’t know the big stacks were supposed to avoid the other big stacks. I tell him about the railbird who noticed the tell, but I couldn’t see if he was flushing or not.

Sam snorts in derision. “If you couldn’t see that, and you were sitting next to him, how can she tell when she’s way back in the audience?” He has a point. “If she were such a good poker player,” says Sam dismissively, “she would be playing instead of watching.”

Phil concurs. He says usually after a railbird gives him advice, they hit him up for money. “But look at it this way,” he says, “On this trip the railbirds have been your guardian angels. If they hadn’t stopped you from mucking your cards you would have been out two days ago. Basically you’ve been on a free roll.” And that at least is true. God bless the railbirds. Even though I am sadder and wiser, because of them I am also $57,000 richer.