The Girl Who , Talked Too, Much
I’ve never been a very chatty person during poker. It’s hard for me to focus and banter at the same time. Especially if I’m in a big hand. I’ve always felt the less said, the better. Usually, I stare stonily at my opponent until they indicate discomfort at which point I go all in.
Then I took a class with Joe Navarro and he convinced me I wasn’t using my entire arsenal. “Talk to them a little,” he urged. “Find out where you’re at. See how comfortable they are.” Yes, of course. How many times have you seen Daniel Negreanu on TV casually asking someone if they really have aces, and getting his answer in the form of a happy giggle?
The fi rst time I tried this, Barry Greenstein was at an adjacent table. I guess I have a loud voice because he took me to one side and said, “Jennifer, I notice in your questioning, you basically give away your hand.” I thought about it and realized this was true. I would only ask about hands that beat me. For example, if I had had pocket jacks, I would say, “What do you have: queens, kings… aces?”
Fast forward one year later. The Bellagio Cup. Four hundred people have died. There are only fi fty of us left. I am already in the money and have an above average chip stack. Just before dinner I am moved to a new table featuring Barry Greenstein, Gabe Thaler, John Phan, and David Pham. Usually, when moved, I try not to enter the pot until I can get the feeling of the table. But I know these guys. I’ve played with them all before. I know how they play.
Things are moving too slow for me. I am not getting any hands. It’s that point in the tournament where everyone is being super cautious. The blinds and antes are so high, one misjudgment can put you out of business. John Phan, on the other hand, is fearless, entering almost every pot. I decide he doesn’t need to win every hand. Surely, I can have one. The next time he raises I will re-pop him. The very next hand he raises under the gun. Everybody folds around to me on the small blind. I pretend to look at my hand (Q-6 off-suit) and then carefully reraise one hundred thousand chips.
I am unprepared for what happens next. John pushes all in so fast it makes my head whirl. All in for approximately eight hundred thousand more. I try to approximate the appearance of someone making a diffi cult fold, but it is hopeless. I don’t think he has anything either, but how can I call? I have Q-6 off-suit. John is openly laughing at me. He totally has my number.
I meekly hide my cards into the muck and sadly recount my chips. Due to my “brilliant” idea I have lost one fi fth of my stack. Even if I had a legitimate hand it wouldn’t have mattered. There are really only two hands I could call an all in with: pocket aces and pocket kings. Everything else I have to fold. Including Q-6. I was outplayed, plain and simple.
“I know how you play!” John crows merrily. “You called a big raise once with pocket twos and knocked me out of a tournament!” The Borgata. Three years ago. I can’t believe he remembers. He is laughing at me. My face is red. John calls over his friend and talks to him rapidly in Vietnamese, laughing. His friend laughs too, and so does David Pham. I am sure they are all discussing my bad play. I am steaming. David is still laughing when he glances over and notices it’s my blind. Even before he looks at his cards I know he’s going to raise me. Why not? She plays bad, and she’s tilting. Sure enough he does.
I look down at K-8 suited. “Please Jennifer, don’t do this,” I plead silently. “Don’t play a substandard hand out of position against the chip leader and a genius.” And even as I think this, I see a hand (I’m pretty sure it’s mine – I recognize the rings) carrying a bunch of chips over the line. “If I don’t fl op two pair or a fl ush draw, I’ll fold,” I promise myself weakly.
The fl op: king, ace, jack, rainbow. I’m not too worried about the ace. I seriously think David was just making a move on my blind. If anything he probably has something like a suited 7-8. I bet out. I don’t like it much when he calls.
The turn comes another ace. I am unprepared for the fl utter of elation that accompanies this sight. I realize in the back of my mind was the lurking fear that he did have an ace. Now with the appearance of a second one, I feel it’s highly unlikely. I bet again. David raises. I think my mouth drops open. I feel an irrational indignation rising in me. It’s not fair! David is representing that he has the ace. How dare he! Now I have to fold. Between this hand and the previous hand I have lost half my stack. Goodbye running over the table. Hello penny pinching.
And then, as so often happens, I begin to think outside the box. What if… he doesn’t have the ace, and I can get him to fold? It doesn’t necessarily follow that I have to lay down to a raise. He probably has a jack. Or maybe even the other king which he now thinks is good. Perhaps he thought the same thing I did when I saw the ace. “There’s two out there… she doesn’t have one.” Maybe I can outplay him (LOL… outplay David Pham). “Just fold, just fold!” wails a little voice unhappily. I brush it aside. I decide to do the Joe Navarro thing… ask questions, get inside his mind. I stand up “What do you have, David?” I ask accusingly.
I am trying to sound casual and friendly like Daniel Negreanu, but even to my own ears I sound shrill and slightly hysterical. “Pocket kings?” I ask incredulously. “Ace-jack?” I see Barry Greenstein out of the corner of my eye, and I remember what he told me a year ago, but I tell myself this is different. I’m not revealing anything, I’m creating an illusion with my words. An illusion of having an ace. The only thing that can beat me is a full house. Minutes tick by. I am dimly aware of someone calling a clock. I am still standing, glaring at David when the fl oorman arrives and starts counting me down. A phrase from my video game fl oats to the surface. “Think long think wrong.”
I discard that pesky thought also. To my mind David’s façade is beginning to crack. His forehead wrinkles. He seems vaguely perturbed. He looks down. Aha! That’s a tell. I jam my cowboy hat down on my head and sit back down. “All in!” I say grimly. John Phan wanders by the table, and sees that I am all in. I have taken so long in my decision making process he has taken to roaming the room. “I love this game,” he comments in passing. David calls awful fast. He has an ace.
Once again, I have forcibly ejected myself from a major tournament from within a stone’s throw of the fi nal table. When I think about it later, I realize the slim chance David would fold was completely obliterated by my pre-shove banter. By running through the hands that could “beat me,” I effectively told him what I didn’t have. With a king and a jack on board, he probably fi gured if I also had an ace his bad kicker would be cancelled and worst case scenario it would be a chop. I fi nd Phil at Yellowtail where they are having a preopening dinner. “I’m out,” I tell him, my face white with shock.
Phil and Antonio have a shtick where they are always saying, “I never win… nobody ever wins at poker.” And I always tell them not to say that. I feel that it’s a negative mantra that might become a self-fulfi lling prophecy. Now I can’t help but wonder if there is some glitch in me that causes me to spontaneously combust just short of the fi nish line.
When the Olympics were in L.A., my ex-husband Sam and I drove to see a track event, and on the way he told me a story. There was a guy in the event that always came in second because there was another runner who was the best in the world. This year there was a tremendous expectation, because the best guy had injured his ankle and everybody believed this would be the fi rst gold medal for the second- place fi nisher. The race was thrilling. Mr. Second Place was sailing ahead of the pack the whole way. But as he approached the fi nish line, he couldn’t believe he was winning. Through sheer force of habit he looked over his shoulder to make sure the other guy wasn’t coming up behind him. And that one backward glance slowed his momentum just enough that another runner came out of nowhere to pass him and come in fi rst. His sense of identity as second best was so strong he made it happen.
All four times I’ve busted out of tournaments late in the game, I had an above average chip stack. I could have gone home early and still made it to the last day. A few weeks later I am hanging out in Sam’s guesthouse. We sit in his offi ce surrounded by Emmys. His property is like Harvey Two- Face. Outside one window are verdant gardens, priceless sculptures, and koi ponds. Outside the other window is something approximating Beirut. Bulldozers have reduced his former home into a pile of rubble, making room for the home of the future.
I tell him the whole story, concluding with my theory of self-sabotage. “Do you think there’s something in me that wants to lose?” I ask pleadingly. Sam is thoughtful for a minute. Then he scribbles something on a piece of paper and pushes it across the desk. “What’s this?” I ask, picking it up. “It’s the number of Lamon Brewster’s sports psychologist,” says Sam. “Why don’t you give him a call?”
