Deep in the biggest poker satellite* in the history of the southern hemisphere. Thirty-eight spots get a ten thousand dollar ticket to the Main Event of the Aussie millions. They say first place in that will be a cool two million. These figures are all astronomical to me.
But goddamn it I’m close. Six-hundred and fifty players started this thing, only seventy are left. 
Here I am, close, so damn close to a ticket into the biggest tournament I’ll have ever played.
(Click the PDF icon, upper right, if you prefer reading a black-on-white script)
The young guy opposite me raises. I guess he’s serious about poker, wants to be serious, anyway. He wears large noise cancelling earphones and a hoodie, is mute between hands and robotic during them: the aesthetic of the young professional. He raises and the rest of the table folds. I look down at my cards; my heart jumps up into my throat. I have pocket Aces.
My stack is small – only three big blinds. So we’re going to get it in, no matter what, for a pot worth 150,000 in tournament chips. That’s only ten big blinds, mind you. But ten big blinds is the tournament average. And here’s the thing: I’m good at these satellites. Very good. When I win this pot, I’ll be a favourite to win a ticket. 150,000 is more than enough for me. I can manoeuvre and manoeuvre and grind my way to victory.
Ten big blinds is plenty.
So here I am on the cusp of getting a seat into the pre-eminent event on the Australian poker calendar.
I say: “All-in.”
The young pro sits up straight in his seat, electric trill in his spine, and asks how much: he sees the odds mean he must call with any two cards. He does so, and shows pocket sevens.
I table my aces.
I’m an 81% chance to win.
The dealer spreads the flop: Ten of Hearts, Nine of Heart, Two of Spades. Good, but not great. My opponent has the Seven of Hearts, giving him some backdoor straight and flush possibilities.
The dealer burns, and turns the next card. My heart is trying to beat its way out of my chest.
#
I’m back at the Aussie Millions after a six year break. In the past, the event was always a field of shattered dreams for me. In every other realm of poker, online and live, I was a winning player. But the Aussie Millions always chewed me up and spat me back out. Not sure if it was my being overwhelmed by the prestige of the event, or that I always found myself on the wrong side of variance during those baking hot Januaries in Melbourne, but my success there had always been limited.
This time around I was going to change all that. I’d been playing well since I came out of retirement, my game was getting back to its best, and goddammit if it wasn’t about time skill and luck found a happy union down in the bowels of Crown Casino Melbourne, in that poker room.
The poker world is a very different one from the genteel worlds of the public service, or academia, or the literary community. It’s one of the reasons I like it. It’s a world full of smart, sometimes shady, always flawed people. From all walks of life.
Of course, not all forms of interaction on the felt are positive.
Case in point: I’m playing a pot limit Omaha cash game. Trying to grind out a little extra money on the side while I’m not in a tournament. The player to my right was a nice guy, quiet, focussed, ran a start-up cleaning company. He was also a crusher. A PLO wizard who knew his stuff. He was slowly and efficiently cleaning up all the chips at the table.
The guy to his right was young, straight-backed, and a stickler for the rules. Often correcting the dealer if he or she did something imprecise. He had short neat hair and an air of self-assurance.
He also had a lot of theories. About immigration. About birth rates among white women. About the Australian demographic make-up. He was explaining all his theories to the Cleaner. The rest of the table – as is standard at just about any poker table around the world – was diverse. Gamblers from all corners of the globe – with a particular weighting towards East and Southeast Asia.
But the Theorist didn’t seem to notice ethnic make-up of the players, and went right ahead expounding his theories on the decline of the white population.
The Cleaner asked: “Where do you get all these facts?”
“I read.”
“You at university?”
“No. Telemarketing.”
I corrected the Theorist a couple of times. He criticised food aid to poor countries, for example, (it was bad, he said), I explained how it was crucial in times of natural disaster, and in some aid contexts – as an incentive to get more girls into school, for example (I’d run food-for-education programs in my former life as an aid worker). I explained that women with a complete set of rights, in particular education, have fewer children and greater independence.
But after a while I disengaged and focussed on the game, because who wants to have these conversations while kicking back and playing some cards? I love this tournament series and I love coming down and being part of it. Up the back of the room a big cash game is humming, with Robert Campbell (WSOP player of the year), Jeff Lisandro, and a bunch of pros sitting behind huge piles of black hundred-dollar chips. The day before I’d sat next to Andrew Moreno, the brother of poker vlogging sensation Johnnie Vibes. I told Andrew how I’d watched him online retelling a hand, where he correctly called a river bluff with Queen high. Later, he called my all-in with Queen-high and doubled me up. I had Kings. We laughed about that.
So I’m in Melbourne for that, not this other bullshit. But I couldn’t help but overhearing the young telemarketer a few minutes later – apparently after ruminating on my explanation of women’s empowerment – saying to the Cleaner: “See, that’s the problem isn’t it, with educating women.”
Cleaner: “I don’t know what you mean.”
Theorist: “Well, the birth rate goes down the more they are educated, but Australia needs more white women having children…” he paused, expectantly, waiting for the Cleaner to join the dots.
“My wife’s Filipino,” said the Cleaner.
“Okay, but you see what I’m getting at.”
“You mean, make women be less educated?”
“Well,” the Theorist said, “I know it’s not politically correct.”
“Nah mate,” said the Cleaner. “That’s never going to happen.”
“Well,” replied the Theorist, shrugging his shoulders. This look on his face. Like he had the answer but you can’t handle the truth.
I thought about asking him what sort of system he’d like to see in place. A Saudi one, perhaps? Where women cover themselves, have half the rights of men, and need to get permission from their male guardian before going to university?
But I’m involved in a pot, and if you want to understand something about the poker world, nothing is as important as the pot you are in. Nothing is more important as the calculations on the flop, turn, and the river; nothing is as important as the money in the middle.
The Theorist got up and left the table before the hand had finished. I was disappointed. Everyone is equal at the poker table, of course, and everyone’s money is as good as another. But still. Sometimes you just want to felt a motherfucker. As Fast Eddie Felson (played by Paul Newman) says: “Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.”
True. But money won from a douchebag is twice as sweet again.
The cash games were going okay, this Aussie Millions. I was up, but not a lot. Barely worth mentioning. The big money – the life-changing money – was still out of reach. I’d already played in the opening event of the AM the day before. First prize three-hundred and fifty grand. I busted that. AQ versus an American pro and his A10. Pretty hard to run deep in these things when a better player is also putting bad beats on you.
But I still had the satellite, the next day. I’m good at those. Really good.
#
My heart is trying to beat its way out of my chest. The dealer lays out the turn. It’s an innocuous four of clubs. I’m holding my breath. There’s one card to come. I’m 95.5% to take down this hand.
The dealer burns and deals the river. I close my eyes involuntarily, unable to watch. Open them again.
And there it is.
There it fucking is, like a thunderbolt. The Seven of Clubs.
When you get knocked out of a big poker tournament, especially with a bad beat, it’s often hard to remember what happened afterwards. I think I slammed the table and walked out. I’m not sure. There’s a buzzing in my head, anger. I’m swearing internally and walking I don’t know where I’m going, playing the hand over and over in my mind.
A voice says to me: “I saw that beat you took.”
I look around. I’ve ended up in the food court on the other side of the casino. An old guy – maybe 70 – is standing in front of me. Balding, hooded eyes. The hooded eyes of a poker player that watch and watch and yet give nothing away. I recognise him from my table earlier in the day. It’s ‘Kiwi’ Graeme Putt, a member of the Australian Poker Hall of Fame.
“Huh?”
“The beat you just took.”
“Oh,” I say. “Yeah.”
“It was a bad one,” he says.
“Yeah,” I try and fail to explain I’d never been so close to a 10k event, mumbling: “that was big one, for me.”
He nods and moves on. Seen a million bad beats, in all his years, delivered a million more. This 
one, like all before, will flow on down the river of the poker gods. All the permutations of all the luck, of all the beats, all the hands that held up. The cards that were begged for, and the cards that never came. The river flows and will continue to flow. I will dip my feet into it again and the river will be different, always be different. Each time.
The buzzing in my head clears.
I order a felafel. As I eat, I wonder what tournaments are running the next day.
*For those unfamiliar with the concept, satellites are a poker tournament invention to get smaller stakes players into the bigger events. For example: 10 players pay a hundred dollars in a single-table tournament, winner gets a ticket to a thousand dollar tournament. I paid 750 for this satellite, the 38 winners got a 10,600 seat (39th got four grand).