More hours. I am tired at last, sleeping until dawn for the first night in weeks. Strangely, the lights are on. I am confused until I realize there has been an outage and a power surge, triggering the fancier electronics. Even lamps have remote controls now; to think people complain about capitalism.
Without love’s clear purpose, life is a challenge. Winning fills these natural channels for a bit; I am a simpleton at heart. In fact. I’ve put in a few wins now and things feel better or perhaps quiet, as if I’ve survived a fall and can check to see what is broken and what isn’t. Yet it is mostly meaningless, barely purchase on what I need to do; echoes of Billy’s constant laments. Still, if I can consolidate it at Sergio’s and stay positive for the series…
The next night I am not so lucky, waking at four. The session had not been wasted but perhaps I should have stayed later. The small win came from a three-bet pot where I out-flopped my opponent. Unfortunately, I may as well have had eight high again, with which I had stolen from him with earlier. He’s a folder, an overfolder, someone who only sees what beats him. My value bet on the river, even after checking turn, only gets him to do his thing. He engages with me during the hand, I say something neutral, and he concludes I must have it, not realizing he always concludes this.
I was like him for most of my life, always seeing the worst and so occasionally being right. The problem was not what I thought it was. Of course I was seeing patterns that were there. What I was not seeing was the nature of reality. I was a fatalist, I could not create myself or a future, which is our most basic duty to ourselves. Religion and an even worse secular religion had raised a fool, a loser. I had followed my own rearing blindly: das Man, in Heidegger’s formulation. I had dodged moments of authenticity. I can name them all and do. Yet even lost in the crowd, itself a way of describing das Man, there are shades of conflict where weakness is confronted.
Poker helps remedy this condition of weakness. Games teach. It has taken me, the ultimate slow learner, too long. I had thought – even recently! – that I overcame my father’s fears of living freely that I was free, but this was not true either. Leaving the normal world was only a first step.
It’s not much of night. My light opens are all punished. Late night, I go uber-thin and get shown a monster. I take off. I’m worn out and it is a small error but really, I’m just not accustomed to all these hours. Next time, I will stay longer. The necessity has yielded redirection on the graph, but the night before had been much better, the kind of night that earns sleep.
I had been doing my regular thing and was ready to post a well-earned but small win, when a bomb pot presented me some trouble. I had flopped bottom set and an unimprovable straight, truly a trap hand if I had ever seen one. The best NL player at the table had lead into me. Of course, I’ve folded here before and saved thousands. I decided to see another card, not for any reason other than that there is so much silliness out there. I absurdly wished for quads to rescue me from the dilemma. More seriously, I wasn’t closing the action – I could still be raised. I was not.
On the turn, the flush on top came in, meaning my weak set was even more surely behind; the straight remained pristine but more draws arrived. I could not bet, although it seemed I was not likely being quartered, for the moment, on the bottom. Now the button potted it. Bad news. Yet two more players, including the flop lead, now called. The button clearly had the flush and I was getting four to one for the straight. I hesitated, but in the end, the price was too tempting. I hated it but called, foreseeing a few good outcomes, even if I was drawing to one out on top.
On the river the top board paired. No lead came, but I did not think all full houses would bet. My straight on the bottom was demoted to the second nuts and was now sharing with any live five. Potting would get flushes to fold and full houses to call. Really, betting, which exposes me to raises I can’t call, would often be an overplay in these conditions. I checked. When the button checked behind, I knew I was winning something.
It turned out I had overestimated these players. The flop lead was weak and one of the turn callers had dumped his money in even weaker. I was ahead everywhere. It was an unlikely event. However, the table didn’t like my check, and not just because the flush had gotten unlucky.
Confusion abounds. My clarity of strategy didn’t entirely help me here, as I was up against bomb pot novices, and I might have known it. They essentially tell me this at the end, which I suppose is the joke on all of us: listen when they tell you who they are. My clarity in life has come late, too. My memories are mostly terrible; I understand now why they say you need good ones when you are older.
I resist if only because there is nothing else to do. And I still have plans. The problem is that life feels heavy. The future is awkward, immobile. I cannot shape it or myself as easily. However, I did force myself to action these nights, when I had wanted to chase impossible sleep. A man must compel himself, Mishima had warned. It had all been mere slogans, once.
Everything is black. The fans blow but the heat is in everything, like breath, like a poison. I get out of bed.
+1036
