Typical Day
Jack Diamond wakes up at 8:00AM to the sound of the maid at his door asking if he wants room service. He forgot to hang the sign on the knob again. It's almost as if the hotel doesn't truly value his contribution to their fine establishment. After screaming at her from underneath his pillow to come back later, it's straight back to sleep for Jack the professional poker player.
At 11:00AM, Jack's finally ready to greet the day. He rolls out of bed, turns off his alarm, and throws on the same thing that he wore yesterday: a stiff pair of pants and a crumpled shirt. He would change if he was on a bad streak, but he did fairly well last night and he doesn't want to mess with a good thing.
He opens up the room safe and takes out ten grand—or, as his favorite movie would call it, "one stack of high society." Holding all that money at once makes him feel rich. Never mind that it's the only high society stack he has—the rest is his "emergency only" fund. If he doesn't record a winning session today, he's probably going to have to go back to his parents or one of his buddies for a loan.
Or get a real jo—haha, we kid.
After a hearty (complimentary) continental brunch at 12:30PM, Jack decides it's time to start the workday. He takes his stack directly to the cashier cage and exchanges it for a couple racks of chips. After a few awkward jokes with the cashier, Jack settles down at his favorite table—a no-limit Texas Hold'em table near the water fountain, the one with the spitting Cupid statue. He knows it's silly, but he's sure the marble cherub has been spitting a little luck his way.
Once a fifth player sits down at the table, the dealer shuffles up. Three of these other guys Jack recognizes—seasoned semi-pros who are tough players and even tougher bluffers. But this fifth guy—pressed suit and fidgeting hands—has easy money written all over him. Until this gentleman loses the last of his chips, the goal is to avoid confrontations with each other while picking this fellow's pocket as often as possible.
In Texas Hold'em, each player gets two cards with five face-down on the table that everyone gets to use. Each player in turn bets (or folds) and the first three cards are flipped—this is called the "flop," which is what Jack feels like doing every time it doesn't go his way.
Everyone bets/folds again, and the fourth, or "turn," card is turned. Another bet, the final card (the "river") is flipped, and the players who are still in it try to size up whether or not they have the best hand, knowing that the player(s) they're staring at get to use the same five cards on the table with the two they're holding to create the best five-card hand possible.
And this is just one version of the vast array of poker games Jack knows how to play.
The cards are dealt and the game begins. The first hand is a doozy. The first person to act raises on top of the original buy, making it $65 to stay in. Jack's got a pretty strong hand to start: an ace and the Queen of Clubs.
He'd sometimes just call the bet here, but he needs to protect his good position and wants anyone who might stay in with bad cards on a low bet to get out (those bad cards can turn good on the flop and Jack doesn't need the outside challenge). He bets instead, making the pot $210 all day.
Around to the fresh meat in the pressed suit. It's likely he's got bad cards and should fold here, but he calls. "Amateurs," Jack thinks. Bets done, the flop flips: queen-queen-ten with a couple hearts and a spade. Bingo—Jack has three queens with an ace "kicker" (think of it as the tie-breaker).
The original raiser "checks" (doesn't bet), so Jack raises—it would look too suspicious if he didn't. The pot stands at over $300. Jack's feeling pretty good; no one without solid cards would stay unless they didn't know what they were doing.
The new guy bets $1,800.
Oof. It's a huge over-bet. Jack's now thinking the guy's got a king-queen here, or else is overplaying a hand he thinks is good, like a pair of aces or kings. He could have two hearts of his own and hope that one more shows up in the next two cards, or maybe he thinks that ten is good.
Of course, there's the teeny-tiny chance he flopped a full house with two tens or a queen-ten in his hand, but Jack is crushing the majority of this guy's range. This is why he wanted him at the table in the first place—so he could spew off all his chips in a spot just like this one.
With the odds on his side, Jack piles the rest of his $10,000 to end matters right there. The new guy calls as quickly as possible and shows his cards: queen-ten. Full house.
A seasoned poker player would never in a million years have stayed in with that hand—not with a raise and re-raise in front of him. That's why they call this gambling—and it's not just on the cards themselves. You gamble on the type of player sitting across from you. The nightmare is real: Jack is going to need to spike an ace or his stack of high society is going to vanish in a jiff.
No help from the eight of spades on the turn or the three of diamonds on the river. He's done. Jack gets up from the table as the new (and much richer) jerk celebrates and high-fives some of the friends he brought. This is probably just a weekend thrill in between conferences for fancy pants and his peanut gallery. For Jack, this is a serious hit to his livelihood.
He didn't expect he'd have to use it after only one hand, but thankfully there's still the emergency fund in his safe upstairs, just begging to be gambled. He retrieves it and heads back downstairs for another go. At 1:00PM, merely a half hour since he started working the floor and already ten grand in the hole, Jack tries his luck again.
The next few hours are a bit more typical for Jack, who really is a decent card player. By 4:00PM he's built his stack up to $8,200—along with a mild discomfort in his tummy. It's time to eat, but Jack's on a roll and doesn't feel like moving. Great news: he doesn't have to.
Jack calls a wandering cocktail waitress over for service and orders a plate of chicken fried rice to be brought to the table. That's the good thing about being a big-spending poker player—Jack never has to take a break in order to fit in his meals. Fitting into his pants is an entirely different question. The casino has a gym, or so Jack has heard.
Finally, at the reasonable hour of 11:00PM, Jack decides that it's time to call it a day. His current standing: $16,500, which means all told he's earned $500 for the day. Not bad, considering that at one point Jack was down as much as he owes in back taxes (he'll get those paid eventually).
He counts his cash one more time before he locks it in the safe for the night. He then climbs in the hotel's comfortable bed and turns on the television to ESPN 2.
Jack falls asleep watching his favorite program: televised poker.