Sports Saturday
This past week my novelist friend Rachel Kranz was visiting after having busted out of the World Series of Poker tournament in Las Vegas. She made it to Day 4 (out of 9), which was pretty good considering that she has only been playing for three years. Still she was upset, as good competitors always are.
One of the benefits of Rachel playing poker is that she writes remarkable essays about her experiences, which can now be read on her website adventuresinpoker.com (which, I am proud to say, my son Darien designed for her). Even if you are not into poker (as I am not), you may enjoy reading her posts, which are aimed at a general reader. Most of them are little gems, filled with literary allusions and containing many observations about the writing process.
Here’s a passage from “No-Limit Writing.” Rachel finds herself in a bar talking with a woman about how one decides whether or not to write a book. The woman has said that she has an idea that won’t let go of her, to which Rachel offers the following extended analogy. It comes down to the difference between a passing fantasy and an obsession:
“It’s like, say you’re sitting at a bar and you think, ‘Oh, that bartender is so cute.’ He’s younger than you, and he’s a bartender, and it’s a completely inappropriate relationship in just about every way, but you’re kind of attracted to him, and he seems to be flirting a little with you, and you get into a nice conversation, and you think, ‘Well, this can’t really go anywhere, but it would be kind of a nice fling…’ And then he tells you that the next day, he’s moving to Paris, and you think, ‘Oh, well, it wasn’t going to go anywhere anyway,’ and you go home with a slight feeling of disappointment, and most of the time, that’s just that.
“But if you find that you can’t stop thinking about him, and you can’t stop thinking about him, and you can’t stop thinking about him; and a month later, you’re still thinking about him, wondering what might have happened, wondering what he’s really like, wondering what you could have been like, and then you keep thinking about it, and then you’re still thinking about it. Until you finally have to buy a one-way plane ticket and all of a sudden, there you are, wandering the streets of Paris, looking for this guy whose name you don’t even know—Well, that’s what writing a book is like. Not a ghostwritten book, of course, but a real book. And if you don’t feel that obsessed with it, if that’s not how much you have to do it, if you’re not that driven by it, even if you know it might not get published, even if you know it might not be any good—Well, you’re probably not going to write the book. You’re certainly not going to finish it.”
She’s staring at me, open-mouthed. “That’s what writing a book is like?” she says. “No wonder you like poker.”
I particularly like Rachel’s description of an Iranian player, Soheil Shamseddin (known in the poker world as “what the hell Soheil”) whose exuberant style of play Rachel admires. Rachel quotes Shamseddin’s daughter that her father may seem crazy but that “he has his own reasons for doing everything, so inside his own head, you know, it’s not crazy at all.” Then Rachel proceeds to describe an encounter with him:
He calls huge raises and reraises with little cards and makes enormous bluffs, which he cheerfully shows. “It’s not whether I have it, it’s whether you don’t have it,” he says with that same overflowing joy—he takes more pleasure in winning than anyone I’ve ever seen, in a way that has nothing to do with defeating an opponent or reveling in anyone’s discomfort, but simply because he loves to play. He seems to enjoy defeat almost as much, throwing away the bluff cards when they don’t work and laughing. When he cracks someone’s aces with those little cards, hitting an unlikely straight that he milks the most value from, he laughs then, too. Is he bluffing or does he have it? What the hell?—there’s no way to know.
For a few hands, Soheil seems to be going after an English player, someone I’ve pegged as an online pro and good player, but clearly not on the WPT circuit, as he doesn’t know Soheil. Whenever the English guy makes a bet, Soheil asks how many chips he has—a typical question in poker that is partly about the math (you bet differently based on you and your opponent’s stack sizes) but largely about the mental game (his tone of voice when he answers you, or the look on his face when he fails to answer you, often tells you all you need to know). Twice, in response to Soheil’s question, the English guy pushes his chip tower forward, so Soheil—or the dealer—can count it himself, a typical response and the one, incidentally, that The Numbrist and his cronies recommend. The third time, though, the man’s patience wears thin. “You keep asking me and asking me!” the English guy explodes. “My chips are right here—you can see them! Why do you keep asking me?”
Soheil bursts into delighted laughter, as though they’re sharing the most delicious joke. “Because I’m trying to get a tell on you!” he roars, as though the other guy will enjoy the punch line as much as he does. The other guy doesn’t—but I do. I don’t think you can fake joy like this. I think you have to have decided that you love the game, you love your play, and you love your opponents. Yeah, you’d rather win than lose—why else would you work so hard? And I’ll leave it to The Numbrist to comment on whether Soheil’s poker style is optimal or full of leaks, whether it depends (as it seems to) on physical presence and would tank in a moment online. Sitting at this table, leaking away my chips (though not, as it happens, to him—the one time we’re in a hand together, he folds to my bet), I feel it was worth $3000 just to watch this man at work, soaring through the poker clouds like some kind of exotic bird, freer of gravity than the rest of us, though as far as he’s concerned, we’re all welcome to fly along. Maybe he’s a lousy father or the world’s best dad; maybe he’s a winning player or the world’s biggest deadbeat; maybe he’s a brilliant poker mind or poker’s biggest joke—I don’t know and right now, I don’t care. To me he’s a sign of how to take the game totally seriously and yet not seriously at all, how to work so freely and joyously, how to play so lightly and so well, that every moment becomes a new discovery, every hand a fresh adventure. Like the jazz musician who seems to follow no logic but the beckoning of every moment, he does look crazy, but I can see his daughter’s point: the greatest freedom and the greatest discipline often go together, though from the outside, they just look random. Soheil’s opponents look on in bemusement or annoyance or grudging appreciation, and I shake my head in wonder.
And then I lose the rest of my chips and it’s time to leave the table.
Check out the website. You’ll have fun.
