You might as well be broke. Well okay, so it's not that bad, but it could be better. A lot better. You checked your bank account last week and quickly wished you hadn't opened that tab at Nick's the night before.\nBut there might be a way for you to cut your losses. It's a bit of a gamble, but what else are you going to do -- find a job? Not likely. First place wins some restaurant gifts certificates and $500. You can take or leave the dinner stuff, but you can make those five bills last a while ... at least until the end of the semester.\nStill, as much as you hate to admit it, the chance of you outlasting almost 200 card sharks probably isn't much stronger than a low pair against a royal flush. And the last thing you want is to come home empty-handed, so you ask your boss -- even though it sounds too good to be true -- if you can write about your shot at the stakes. What it's like to sit at a table with 9 other guys who have at least two things in common: the same number of chips to start and the same lust for that wad of cash given to the last man standing.\nSounds good, the editor says. Go for it.\nIf only you could bluff as well as you can pitch a story.
'Shuffle Up and Deal'\nThe line for the tournament holds two types of players: contenders and dead money, and if the tournament director asked everyone to form two lines, you'd be leading the dead money charge with your $20 entry fee squeezed in your already-sweaty hand. Inside the room there must be 20 tables to choose from, each ready with two decks of cards and evenly stacked chips. If only you could decide where to sit.\nYou don't want anything to do with the guy over there with his arms crossed below his stone-cold face. You'd be as vulnerable as a baby with candy if you dueled with him. And forget about the table where the woman in the white shirt just sat down. You can't have a story that ends with you losing to a girl. But the room is filling up fast, so you'd better scramble to one of the last seats at the table in the middle of the room.\nThe tournament is already running late when the old man in charge announces rules to the field. No limit Texas Hold'em is the name of the game, he says. It's real simple. \nEverybody is dealt two cards. Then you bet. \nThe dealer flips three cards. Then you bet. \nThe dealer flips a fourth card. Then you bet.\nThe dealer flips a fifth card. Then you bet. \nThe player with the best five-card hand wins. \nThis guy keeps talking for what seems like forever, but you and everyone else at the table couldn't care less. Until you hear those four words, you all just chat about whatever you can to pass the time.\n"I just want to last at least an hour," Troy Vincel says across the table. "I've just seen this stuff played on TV" A conversation about the World Series of Poker on ESPN ensues.\n"I bet I'm the only one here who's been banned from Caesar's," says Jeff Veach who sits three chairs to your left. Then you all talk about fake IDs and casinos for a bit.\nThen the kid to your right, Steve Kawalek, starts telling you about a tournament where he lost with a hand that never should have lost. But that's always the case with poker players. Like a golfer at the bar after a solid 18 holes, a poker player can recite every detail -- the temperature in the room, the look on his opponent's face -- of every big hand he plays, win or lose.\nFinally the four words you've been waiting to hear come: "Shuffle up and deal."\n"Alright, let's boogie," Kawalek says.
The First Hand\nJust looking at your cards is a process. With one hand you shield the cards so no one can sneak a peak. Then with your other hand, you lift one corner of your cards and study them as if they contain the meaning of life.\nYou look at an ace and seven of clubs. Not quite the meaning of life, but it still works. The dealer shows the first three cards. There's a seven, which gives you one pair, and a club, which gives you a chance at the flush. You bet $50. A few players call your bet, but most of them fold. The fourth card brings another club -- one more for the flush. Now you bet $100. Everyone folds except Kawalek, who calls your bet. The last card comes.\nIt's a club. You made the flush. You bet $100, Kawalek raises it to $200, and then you re-raise it to $300. \nHe calls. You show your flush. He sighs. You rake the chips.\nYou can smell the $500.
Back for More\nAs you clumsily stack the chips you just won with shaky hands and a racing heartbeat, you understand that a winning hand doesn't deliver the composure you hoped it would, but it's enough to keep you coming back to the poker table. \nA rush consumes you when you stand up and gather that pile of chips with your arms as if you were trying to hug the table. You take pride in knowing that you knew you had the best hand but, at the same time, making your opponent think he was ahead. \nYou set the trap and bet small, and when he takes the cheese by trying to muscle you out of the pot with a raise, you strike back with a sucker-punch raise that leaves him stunned.\n"How much did I lose to you again," Kawalek asks three hands later. "About $400?"\n"It was a little more than $400."\nHe thinks back and adds up the bets. "Yeah, you're right. $475."\n"That sounds more like it."\nThe cards slow down for a while after that first hand, but you don't mind just watching for a bit. The steady clatter of people stacking their chips sounds like a den of threatened rattlesnakes, and it almost hypnotizes you as you study the faces around you. You know they've won when a smug grin slithers into their poker face. You know they've lost when their defeated eyes reveal that dazed look, and they only can stare at the cards in silent agony, praying to the poker gods for just one good hand.\nAs players low on chips rush to free more cash from their wallets, you begin to see how losing can keep you coming back to the poker table, too. You drool as the chips breed in the middle of table, and then just when you think you've got it, just when you're about to stand up and collect those chips, just when you think you're one step closer to that $500 prize, the guy next to you flips his cards and you realize that his full house beats your flush. \nYou try to put it behind you, but you can't. Losing a big hand stays with you like a bee sting. At first it just bothers the hell out of you, but then it starts to itch. You play the hand over and over in your mind, thinking about the things that you should have done differently. Should you have raised or checked? How could you not notice the possibility for the full house?\nPsychologists would probably say if you think about a poker hand this much, you shouldn't be playing at all. But what do they know? You tell yourself it's just part of the game. You analyze it so it won't happen again. It's strategy. Every player does it. It's all just part of the game. Just keep telling yourself that and you'll be fine. The cards have to start coming sooner or later, right? Besides, you always can buy more chips. You'll make up for your losses when you win the $500. You don't have a problem.\nRight?
"All in"\nWhat's wrong with you? You fold what you think are crummy cards that turn out to be good hands, and you play good cards that actually turn out to be crummy hands. \nThe room is quieter than when you first started, and empty chairs are starting to multiply. You're getting low on chips again and it's starting to look like you might become the next empty chair.\nThe dealer slides you your cards: an ace and a jack. You push your stack of chips in the middle of the table and bet everything you have.\n"All in."\nTwo players call your bet. One flips over an ace and a king. The other shows a king and a 10. You're not doing as well as you thought. Another jack is your only way out. You look at the dealer and wait for the flop. An ace comes up, but that's it. \nCome on, jack. The fourth card comes up. \nNothing.\nYou're down to one card and starting to sweat. If it's anything but a jack comes up you go home.\nIt's a jack!\nYou clap your hands and shout, "Yeah!" You're back. You're cool.\nBut less than an hour later, you're sweating again and back to being one of the lowest at the table in chips with only $2,375 left. You need some cards, fast. \nYou pull the first card close to you but don't look. When the second card comes, you glance at the players on both sides before you lift the corner of your cards to see what you have. A jack and king of spades. There's no time like the present to bet it all. \n"All in."\nOne guy folds, so does the next and then the guy after him. Finally a player calls your bet. That's what you like to hear. Three more players fold, just like they're supposed to, but then someone else calls. That's not supposed to happen. Suddenly the odds on your jack/king don't look so good. What if they have aces or one of your kings? You're in trouble. Why is it so hot in here?\nIt's down to the three of you. You flip your cards and the other two guys follow your lead. One has an ace and queen unsuited, and the other has a pair of 10s. They both have you beat. A jack's your only hope again. The flop comes up. Come on, jack.\nFirst card ... no Jack ...\nSecond card ... no Jack ...\nThird card ... a 10. That gives the guy to your right a set of 10s, so now the last two cards have to be jacks. \nFourth card ... no jack ... \nYou don't even wait to see the last card. \nIt's over. \nAfter four hours of poker, you walk back to your car with a sting in your stomach instead of a wad in your wallet.\nBut hey, at least you have your (story.)\n-- Contact staff writer Colin Kearns at cmkearns@indiana.edu.
