Poker Superstars
Phil Hellmuth
|
|
Poker Retrospect: The Life |
 There's never been a bigger time for poker. In the recent boom of gaming televised and online, a legion of new celebrity has formed around the career gambler. Beyond the lucky amateurs who come out of nowhere to win millions in tournaments, there are those who've practically grown up around the card table, who've won and lost a fortune trying to keep themselves fed.
Every player who's been around for the long haul is there to tell you how hard it is grinding out a living day in and day out, but mostly you only really see the successes, the guts and glamour of high stakes.
So what is it really like to eek out a living playing cards? Could an amateur do the same? Would it be possible to live in a casino off only the money you win by the turn of cards, going nowhere else, doing nothing else but observing?
How long could one last without seeing light?
There's something primal about the idea of making a living off pure competition. Your body responds the same way it would in a fight. You win a large pot, it's pure adrenaline. Your brain swells and fills with light. There's a certain unnamable satisfaction that comes from spending money you pilfered off of someone who actually worked to earn it. In a way, it’s the closest thing left to being a pirate, though without the ships or parrots or murder by gangplank.
Of course the game does not always result in glee, though. More often you're fighting through depression. Through the bitchy side of luck that always comes back around to find even the most blessed of players. Take a hard beat and your muscles seize. Sometimes it’s difficult to stand up or speak. It can take the wind right out of you, as if you've been run over by a mob.
In the long run, for the person grinding for their lunch, it's not about balls. It's about patience. It's about knowing yourself and your opponent. It's about keeping yourself in line.
The cast of poker characters colonizing a casino could set foundation for a thousand books alone.
I once knocked out a champion prizefighter with a pair of threes in the hole.
I've had a pony-tailed Italian with a Hawaiian shirt flush with chest-hair sit and whisper in my ear about his years of running coke from Austin to L.A., while I played cards and ordered another bottled water from the waitress.
I've watched a man so wasted he could hardly hold his hands still blow thousands in half an hour, betting $200 on every hand and losing one after another without smiling.
I've watched an elderly woman wearing a Sunday hat with mesh veil almost clear an entire table of men's money.
I’ve watched an old black man sit and stare in silence at the table while on both sides of him two drunks screamed racial obscenities caused by the fact that he’d just gotten lucky and won their money.
I’ve watched a Chinese couple sit and bicker over every bet, the wife screaming when her husband would put in more than a couple of dollars at a time. The look of pure, bewildered glee on her face when he won an $80 pot was something I’d forgotten could be worn by an adult.
What does the average casino regular do for a living? What are their hobbies? What do they eat, what makes them giggle, why do they come here all time? Where are they going, where have they been?
A man will tell you a lot of things while you are sitting together playing cards, especially when the drinks are free. There's a whole world here that exists for and perpetuates itself.
|
|
|
.jpg){kind=small}
