Looking across the table I stared into Patrick’s eyes. After deftly maneuvering my way through this tournament I had managed to make it to the final showdown, with skill and a fair amount of luck. So how had I managed to lock myself into this hand? It was without question the worst hand that I had played all day. My pocket cards were the eight of clubs and the nine of diamonds. Even with this being heads up, why on earth had I decided to pay for the flop with this? It made no sense whatsoever. I shook my head when I couldn’t stop the feeling of disgust from bubbling up to the surface. I had the flush draw, but so did Patrick, and that would beat the straight draw that I held thereby making it mostly useless. There were better hands to have waited for. For the first time today I was in a foul mood because I was staring at almost sure defeat.
I looked across the table and saw Patrick staring right at me, his eyes laughing at my discomfort. He was obviously studying me, which I couldn’t quite understand as he was clearly sitting on the winning hand. I could fold now, but as invested as I had allowed myself to become, this hand was my tournament. I might be able to go one or two more hands if I was very lucky. Or I could play it out to the end and show everyone just how foolish I had been chasing down a hand that simply wouldn’t come. Or I could… no that was not an option. I would not change one of my cards to get out of this.
With my only two options laid before me, I started to weigh them again. But, with my stubborn refusal to lose staring right back at me I could feel the mental pressure threatening to snap me in two like a twig. Matt had been right, neither of those options were acceptable to me. What had happened? I had been doing so well too. Now I was suddenly quite aware of the knot that had formed in the pit of my stomach, and it was quickly becoming painful. I stopped trying to think about my situation and instead started to work the knot out, I tried at any rate.
As I was mentally trying to relax I caught sight of Bella up in the stands. She had only added fuel to my desire to win, after Patrick had managed to eliminate her. Her plea to deny Patrick the satisfaction of winning was perfect, since that was my plan. Granted the tables had been running with me and I hadn’t thought much about making her that promise at the time. But now that my luck had dried up and my back was against the wall I was feeling pretty foolish for making it. Looking up at her now I could tell that something was wrong. She wasn’t watching the game, she was studying something else.
We had only talked for a short while before the onset of this tournament, but I felt like I had gotten to know the real her. Since she had joined my table, I saw a new persona that, while not entirely different, was just different enough to confuse those who didn’t know her. She loved hold’em. I mean, she had a passion for the game that I was certain extended to watching it unfold before her. Besides, I figured she had been studying my game as well in the hope of beating me next year. But now, instead of studying me or Patrick, she was looking at something else. Following her gaze as best as I could I realized that she was looking at someone else.
But who was it? I needed to know what was distracting her, if only to distract myself from the mess I was in. So in the guise of stretching my neck I managed to find whom she was staring at, it was her uncle. Why would she be staring at her uncle? She didn’t like him very much. But then, why was her uncle down here, instead of up with the elite? Was that why she was staring down at him? Or was it because of the man he was talking with? And based on how the man with Dempsey looked, he wasn’t one of the elite but more probably one of his lieutenants. This far away, without any of my tools, I had absolutely no clue what they were talking about, and frankly I couldn’t hold the stretch much longer, not if I wanted to avoid my own set of stares.
As I returned my attention to the hand in front of me I was still able to see her out of the corner of my eye and I thought I saw confusion on her face. With the slightest movement of my head I managed to get her back in my line of sight, more or less. Even from this distance, now that I could see her more clearly, I was certain she was confused about something. It was the same look that I had seen earlier when her uncle had called for the break. I noticed again that she didn’t wear confusion well, it was the only emotion that I had seen that could sour her otherwise flawless face.
But her face wasn’t the issue here. The problem was that today I had been following my instincts, it’s how I had managed to get myself this far. Up to this point, I would have said I would be foolish to question them. Unfortunately, my instincts were what got me in this mess of a hand in the first place. To be fair I had caught flushes on the last card at least five different times throughout the tournament, including just a few hands earlier. But now, the time when it mattered most; the river swept me under its surface and lady luck, my constant companion for most of this run, was no longer there to grab my outstretched hand.
Since I was as invested in this hand as I was, even if I were to fold, Patrick would simply bully me into second place. My day came down to this unfortunate and unmatched pair of cards and they were unable to support my weight this time. Unless I did something drastic this was going to be the end of the night for me, and I doubted that my exit would be any more elegant than Bella’s had been.
Hoping to see something different I looked, once again, at the community cards. Nothing had changed. Laying in front of me were the ace, six, and nine of clubs paired with the ace of diamonds and the eight of spades. They sat there mocking me as I studied them, and I seriously thought about making a change to one of my cards. If only I had been dealt an ace in place of one of my cards I would have had another full house, which would give me the best chance of winning. With that hand the only thing that could beat my hand would be a better full house or a straight flush. The odds for a straight flush were long, and I just had a feeling he wasn’t holding a full house.
The dealer looked squarely at me and with a determined voice he prompted, “Sir, the bet is to you.”