The Deal - Poker Fiction

[DonovanMD]

This is a story of my own, nothing big just something I wrote bored at work the other day. Would appreciate some input from people who actually understand poker references. Thanks.

--

The Deal

I can’t walk down the street these days without every second person recognizing me. I can’t order when I’m out for dinner without the waitress asking if I’m that guy from TV. Poker used to just be limited to ESPN2 and late night, now its on in prime time and partly thanks to me. My face flashes across the screen with the rest of the celebrity players who transcend the game, the Ivy’s, Farha’s and Negreanu’s. Producers want me on the featured tables of their tournaments and cash games to draw viewers and help sell Anheuser Busch. I got what I wanted and yet I don’t feel fulfilled. I know it will come to an end sooner or later.

--

The big game takes place in Bobby's Room at the Bellagio. I’ve been a mainstay in the game since I exploded onto the poker scene a few years back. The biggest stakes in the world are played by the best in the world on a daily basis. $4000-$8000 limit requires a buy in of at least $150,000. I bought in two hours ago and I’m already up nearly a half million. The cards just fall my way, winners seem to fall into my lap, and when they don’t I can get away from those situations where another player would go broke. It’s my gift.

I’m dealt five cards and peek down at 2, 3, 4, 5, 7. We’re playing deuce to seven triple draw, the object being to make the best low five card hand from two through seven with straights and flushes counting against your low hand, and I’ve just been dealt the nuts.

There’s no skill involved with the luck I’ve had these days. But it wasn’t always like this. It was only four years ago that I was a broke gambling degenerate back home. I grew up in Edmonton where people rich off oil money loved their gambling. The legal age was 18 so I’d been in the poker rooms winning and losing my pay cheques for years. But there I was, broke and suicidal, ready to just end it all. I’d grown up wanting to be a police officer but the lure of easy money at the poker table had led me astray. I mean I was good, I knew it and so did some of the better players in town. Poker is a skill game and will power and restraint will get you a long way, but it’s a game of long runs and not short term success. And I’d never been good at saving my wins and minimizing my losses. I’d win a thousand one night, go spend half of it then go on tilt the next night when the cards weren’t falling my way and blow the rest away. I had no self control.

So just before Christmas I took everything I had, $500, bought a bus ticket to Vegas and left everything and everyone I knew to become a professional poker player.

“Donny, you in?”

I snapped out of my day dream and looked up at the dealer.

“Sorry. No, I’m out,” I said, mucking my cards. Tonight we were playing five handed dealers choice. It was me, Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivy, Chip Reese and Jamie Gold. Yeah that guy, the one with the blueberries and mountains of cash. Everyone at the table was happy he was donating some of that score back to the poker community.

There was a knock on the window behind me. Bobby’s room is in the center of the Bellagio poker room and has glass windows on two sides so the rail birds can gawk at their favorite TV personalities. I look back to see one girl waving and mouthing, “I love you Phil!” to Ivy. Being a good looking poker pro really gets the attention of the fairer sex. One of the floor staff come to usher the girls along and away from the window when I see him. Standing a few feet off to the side and wearing normal poker player gear, a hoodie with a ball cap pulled low over his eyes and wearing reflective sunglasses. He’s smiling at me and points at his watch, the grin growing even wider. A chill runs down my spine and I turn back to the game. I look back a few minutes later and he’s gone. The next hand is dealt and I focus my attention back on the game.

--

I won about $640,000 tonight, a good win. I always want to win but sometimes I have to have an off night too, donate some back or fold a lot of hands to make it look like I’m being cold carded, just so my opponents keep coming back. They’re all rich pros, but no one has endless pockets. If they all stop coming to the game I’d have to bump down stakes and find other victims, and after playing at the nosebleed stakes I don’t get the same thrill playing for anything less.

So where was I, oh yeah, I was 21 and came to Vegas with nothing but five hundred bucks. I got off the bus with only the clothes I was wearing and caught a cab own to the Bellagio and immediately sat down at a $4/$8 limit game. I’d been driving for over 25 hours but pulled the longest session of my life, grinding out $550 in 72 hours of poker. I drank a lot of coffee and red bull during that session let me tell you. But its funny how time flies at the table, you don’t even realize I cashed out that money and walked down the street to the cheapest place to stay on the strip, a run down little Travelodge with hard beds, stained sheets and dirty everything. I slept for 20 straight hours and it was the last time I had a really great nights sleep.

The next day I woke up and went straight back to the Bellagio. This time I took everything I had and bought in for $1000 at a 30-60 limit game. I told you I had bankroll management problems didn’t I? I was so sure of myself, so confident that I could not only crush the game but live off of poker profits for good. And after six hours at the table I was sitting on over $4000 in chips. I’d never been on a bigger high, the adrenaline had taken its hold.

It was all down hill from there. I dumped it all back in the next six hours and before I knew it I was down to the felt, all in on a flush draw holding AJ of clubs on a two club flop. The board bricked out and I was finished. I’d lost all I had in the world. I walked back to my hotel room which I had for one more night planning on hanging myself. I used the electrical cord from the digital clock next to the bed to fashion a noose and tied it to the fan on the roof of the bathroom. I stood on the toilet and pulled down testing the strength. It felt strong. With tears in my eyes I stepped off the edge, ready to die. The cord held for a moment before the metal grate of the bathroom fan pulled loose from the ceiling and I crashed onto my back, knocking my head on the edge of the toilet and blacking out.

--

When I came to it wasn’t where I expected, not by a long shot. I was lying on warm sand and felt the sun beating down on me. I felt a bug crawling along the side of my face and brushed it off, rolling over and blocking out the intense light. I sat up to look around and the pain in my head erupted. I squinted, seeing nothing but desert and mountains in the distance, meeting blue sky on the horizon.

“Afternoon brother.”

I looked behind me to the source of the voice and saw him for the first time. The face of the man I’d get to know so well over the years to come. He wore a black suit and sat at a card table shuffling a deck of hards in the quick manner of an experienced dealer. He wore a fedora that cast shadows across his pale face and dark eyes. His eyes, they were dark, in fact he had no pupils, no irises, no whites around the edges, just dark black eyes that I couldn’t bare to look at for more than a moment. And he had a crooked smile like a gangster in an old black and white movie. The kind of smile that said ‘I know something you don’t know’ in a cocky sort of way. He cast a shadow in the bright mid day sun that seemed especially dark and long. In fact that’s what struck me the most, that he cast a shadow at all with the sun being directly above us. I looked down at my own and it was only at my feet. He continued shuffling the deck, very fast, like a magician at a street festival. I stood no more than ten feet away and I could smell him, I could smell sulfur in the air. The man in the black suit was the Devil.

“Sit down Donovan,” he nodded to the chair across the card table from him.

I sat and looked across at him before looking down at the green felt. His stare made the hair on back my neck rise and my stomach go into fits. And that arrogant smile. He stopped shuffling and dealt the cards, two to each of us. He peeked at his and laughed to himself.

“I have something good,” he said. “Look at yours. Lets play a hand.”

I reached up and peeked at my hole cards and looked down at two black aces.

“What do you want from me?” I asked. I still felt this had to be a dream, but it felt as real as anything I’d ever experienced

The Devils hysterical smile grew even larger and he replied, “I want to give you what you want Don. What you want more than anything. I want to give you money, power, fame. The whole works.”

A cockroach landed on the table in front of me and closed its wings, and began crawling across the felt. I watched as the man in the black suit pointed a long white finger at it, his hand in the recognizable childhood symbol of a gun and said, “Pow!”

The cockroach jerked to a stop and twitched, shriveling up. The Devil wiped it from the table and continue speaking, “I want you to be the worlds greatest poker player Don. You came down here chasing your dream didn’t you? You planned on hitting it big, and never leaving one way or the other. You’d be dead now if I hadn’t stepped in, hanging in a motel bathroom. Dead, dead, dead, like a door nail son. But I’m going to make you a deal. What do you say?”

My mouth was dry, I felt like I’d swallowed my tongue, and he must have known it because I looked up to see him holding a glass of water.

“Take it, its just water,” he ushered me.

I did, and I drank it.

“What …, what do you want from me?” I asked.

He replied, the smile never leaving his face, “Standard deal, your soul for your dreams. You remain in possession of your soul until set time whereby I become owner of said soul. I’m willing to offer you four years until collection. Four years of being the worlds greatest poker player, I’ll give you the ability and you can just go out and do what you want with it. And when you’re 25 years old, on Christmas day, I’ll come back and collect. What do ya say?”

I sat there in the Nevada heat, warm even in winter, dumbfounded at what was being offered to me.

“You were willing to throw it all away in a motel bathroom last night anyway, now I’m offering you a trade. Your soul for 1461 days of your dreams being fulfilled. That’s 35064 hours, 2,103,840 minutes, 126, 230, 400 seconds of what you came here looking for.”

He stirred a gin and tonic in front of him lazily, his eyes never leaving me.

“Or I can send you back to that motel bathroom where you can wake up on the floor next to the toilet, the same waste of space degenerate you are now, broke and worthless. Its your choice.”

It didn’t take me long to agree. I guess you figured that much. I accepted and still woke up on the bathroom floor next to the toilet, but when I walked out into the room there was a suitcase lying on the bed, and inside were wrapped and banded American $100 bills, only $10,000 in total. Next to that was a note that read:

A little something to get you started.
Good luck. See you in four years.

-D.

--

I made my deal, and got what I wanted, unbelievable poker ability. I was never quite sure if it was actually me playing great poker over the years, or if the cards just fell my way. I sure seemed to suck out on the river a lot more when I was behind than I used to. But the money came, and came, and came, lots of it. I took that ten thousand and turned it into over ten million in less than six months. A year later I was the most famous face in the poker world. I was playing on High Stakes Poker and winning World Poker Tour events. I was the man. I am the man. But time is running out. I’ve started seeing him more and more lately, on the street, in the poker room, and every night in my nightmares. That smile always on his face, he takes pleasure in reminding me that time is almost up.

I walk up to the Bellagio cage with my racks of chips and cash them out. As my stacks of $100 bills are being counted out Chip Reese asks me if I’ll be playing this weekend, he says Sammy Farha is in town and the game should be wild and crazy. I mumble something like, “we’ll see” and turn away. I collect my money and tip the cage attendant and start walking to the exit, my head down and hands in my pockets. Every table I walk past turns and watches me go, the kids with their ipods and sunglasses whispering as I pass, envious of the poker legend. As I reach the door one of the floor staff smiles and waves at me, “Merry Christmas Don, see ya tomorrow.”

“Yeah, Happy Holidays,” I mumble back on the way out.

[Dominic]

pretty decent...you write well. Only suggestion I have is to get rid of the sentence, "The man in the black suit was the Devil." It's not needed. We already know who he is.

Next up, maybe try something original that doesn't rely on an old device like making a deal with the devil...

Good job!

[devilbiss]

Nice work, I thought the story was great.

[diebitter]

Terrific story.

[mattw]

nice job and thanks for posting. have/are you considering writing professionally? what kind of job allows this much time for this type of thought?

have you heard of the novel "cards" by maxwell. your post reminded me of this novel written in the first person with the same sort of story line but in more depth. it was discussed in the books and publications forum along time ago if you would like to try to search for it. posters either liked or hated it with me being a liker and have reread it several times.

edit: i found the post.
cards by maxwell

[DonovanMD]

[ QUOTE ]
nice job and thanks for posting. have/are you considering writing professionally? what kind of job allows this much time for this type of thought?

have you heard of the novel "cards" by maxwell. your post reminded me of this novel written in the first person with the same sort of story line but in more depth. it was discussed in the books and publications forum along time ago if you would like to try to search for it. posters either liked or hated it with me being a liker and have reread it several times.

edit: i found the post.
cards by maxwell

[/ QUOTE ]

My writing is no where near good enough to write professionally. I always wanted to be a sports writer, but you know how it is, dreams don't always come true. I'm terrible at full fledged novels, but I've written thousands of short stories, some pretty good I think. But no one wants to read a book of short stories from some no name writer. It's usually already established authors that can get away with that.

[Oki-Oki]

I really enjoyed this.

I suggest that you fire off an email to bluff of cardplayer and see if anything comes of it. Also try and PM jman or taylor caby as they have both written for bluff before and may be able to help.

[gusmahler]

Nice story. You spelled Phil Ivey's name wrong, though.

[born2ramble]

Good read,
you should post some of your other stories.

What makes you think you can't write professionally? You seem like a natural.

[DonovanMD]

Thanks guys. I dont know what Cardplayer or Bluff would need poker related fiction for, I only have a couple of poker stories, most are just short stories. But I do all of my writing in the first person like this because it seems to come out easier. If you're actually interested in reading some of my other work just PM me, I dont want to spam the forums.