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It had taken about a week of sweltering Las Vegas summer for Tom to decide against stashing his money in mail envelopes in his underwear. True as it is that the desert heat is, as they say, a dry heat, having a tight packet of heavy paper pressed firmly against the skin of one’s ass and/or thighs i…

But he couldn’t. Just as he got ready to get up, the dealer dealt him his next hand. His hands instinctively reached for it, making a little hut or shield around the two cards so that he could lift them up by a corner and look at them. Two black kings. There was no getting up now. After the first t…

Ray finished his breakfast. At table 14, the M-starting-named cocktail waitress was going around dropping off little clocktower-shaped Fiji waters. Safely at a distance, Ray could finally look at her, confirming his impression from the day before: she was, in fact, the brand of beauty a guy like hi…

“No, man, this game gets boring, you know? I mean, of course you know, you’ve played like a billion hands.” Logan chuckled. “Have you thought about what you’ll do after poker?”

Ray had. He had thought and thought about it. After poker was a void, a humiliating defeat, a dishonorable discharge fr…

Ray knew better than to feel good. The very idea of playing cash games professionally hinged on the ability to ignore individual wins and losses. No one hand mattered, no one day ever mattered. Everything had to be transient, everything was noise; the game was the only signal, the way his choices f…