It’s before dawn yet still hot. I’m clicking through the short-forms, stamping approval of some and stamping all into my subconscious. The new paradigm is that you don’t actually watch a drama, you piece it together from highlights and create a whole alternate work. Maybe the ambitious mix up the series entirely; could I prefer Breaking Bad except Saul Goodman is Heisenberg played by Jesse Eisenberg and Walter White is a really good lawyer that can’t catch a break until helpless top website coder incel Tuco needs legal protection from the original Jesse, who is really one of the Winklevoss Twins and also a Sicario under pressure from the Narcos Mexico cast. Maybe they killed his cat or something incredibly spent like that. Aaron Sorkin directs and there’s a lot of really awful talk and walk where Tuco teaches Eisenberg/Heisenberg Spanish. Anyway, only you know the plot to this series you’ve created, connecting the clips like the metaphorical neurons of the AI agent who tells you about the tram from MGM to the Grand Canyon and how the new Hard Rock was finished last year and won’t have a poker room when it opens this one. I know, but you teach me, complains the singularity twenty-four hours a day.
The Ethiopian who was mad at me for helping her through her down returns to me like bad karma. In a tough, so easy to give in spot, I fold a straight to a river lead. It’s got to be the right play, given I’m the one with all the big aces and how this guy plays, but still annoying. Curious about what I did, the dealer scoops up my hand and informs me and the table that I had a straight and must have misread my hand. I tell her firmly that is a bad practice. She again gets defensive, informing me that “it was an accident.” Can’t deal, can’t tell the truth, can’t behave, certainly can’t play poker, but of course I’m the one in the wrong, as usual. You know but don’t teach me, says the problem child.
In one spot I open six-five of hearts, get a call and face a squeeze by a big game player. It’s a huge raise but I can still play if I want. Then, the small blind cold calls. Obviously fishy, but in reality, still a problem. I fold and let Big Game have his way. The board runs out with a flush on it, but Big Game still goes for value with his obvious set or maybe aces with a heart. The small blind tanks, then calls with queen-four of hearts! I wonder what I would have done if I had gotten involved – probably lost a pile. I’ve saved a stack.
Big Game isn’t happy, of course. He accuses the fish of slow rolling him. In some technical way this might be true, but what BG is missing is that fish don’t know what is going on. He’s in another world: you need to give the mark some leeway. (You need to give everyone some leeway.) And by the way, the fish soon racks up, probably offended. So now BG’s done the worst thing possible – driven off a guy who cold calls three bets out of position. Big Game is sort of amusing in his frustration, though, chiding us that there isn’t enough money on our table to get him even. We know, but it’s definitely your fault.
The hands spin like the short forms, like the numbers and bananas and monkey heads falling through a slot tumbler. I get it in with sixes and chop against eight five; how did that happen? Which of us was wrong? I think it might be me, actually.
The countdown numbers seem high, like bad blood pressure. The ticking weighs on me, and not just financially. I put some money into the bank rather than taking it out; first time in a while. It’s not nearly enough, but the truth is I don’t care that much. I’ve been thinking about everything, back to the very beginning. It’s some other countdown, like in a clever movie, doubling down for both hero and villain and the villain is really the hero. How did I get here? In part because I always thought I knew better. I thought my weakness were virtues, but I’ve simply always been wrong. I always thought I knew but I always needed to be taught.
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