‘I tell ya, Daniel, there’s no sure thing. Why, I was in a big-stakes Five-Card Draw game in Waco – we were playing with the joker – and I saw a hand with five aces get beat for everything the guy had.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Daniel said, ‘nothing can beat five aces. What’d the other guy have in his hand?’
‘A Smith and Wesson. A thirty-eight, I believe.’
* * *
When they swung through Las Vegas two months later, Daniel was burning to play. He told Bad Bobby he was ready.
‘Told ya, Daniel, you play your own money any time you think you’re ready. You can play my money when I think you’re ready.’
Daniel said, more challenge than question, ‘You don’t think I’m ready.’
‘Nope. I think you’d get sucked down like a little muskrat swimming in a pool of ’gators. Fact is, you’re still making too many mistakes on the problems I’ve been giving ya.’
With passion, Daniel said, ‘That’s because I’m sick of theory. From watching you play it’s pretty clear that every hand is a unique situation, because you’re involved with people, real individual players, and one of them is on a hot streak, and one just had a fight with his wife, and one has just finished his sixth whiskey in two hours. I would play my own money if I had any left, and I can always get what I need if I have to––’
‘No you can’t,’ Bobby cut him off cold. ‘No thieving, not even an ashtray – that’s an iron rule with me. Offends the poker gods.’
‘I think I’m ready,’ Daniel said firmly.
Bad Bobby scratched his nose. ‘All right,’ he said without conviction, ‘I’ll front you five grand. But the deal is, if you lose so much as a nickel, you don’t play again for a month and you don’t badger me about being ready.’
‘You’re on,’ Daniel grinned.
‘We’ll get us some dinner and head downtown to the Antlers. They’ve got a hundred-dollar-limit Five-Stud game that’s about your speed.’ Bad Bobby gave him a laconic smile. ‘It’s a real character builder.’
Daniel bought in for a thousand dollars and built some character immediately, his three sevens crunched by three jacks – set over set, one of the toughest beats in the game. He called for another thousand.
It took him an hour to lose the second grand. In a pot with six players, Daniel raised himself all-in on the fourth card, which had given him a second pair to go with his aces, only to get beat on the last card by both a low flush and a straight.
Bad Bobby chuckled behind him. ‘Now Daniel, remember what Ol’ Jake Santee used to say: “Don’t hurt to get it all in. What hurts is getting it broke off.”’
Daniel took out the rest of his bankroll and called for three thousand dollars in black chips. Five hours later, having discovered a tell on a player named Frog Jorgenson and having caught some good cards, Daniel had twelve thousand dollars in front of him. When the player to his right busted out, Daniel was surprised to see Bad Bobby slide into the vacant seat and call for twenty thousand dollars in chips.
Daniel played cautiously whenever Bad Bobby was in the pot. Bobby played his usual game, steady with erratic eruptions, though he juiced the action by betting the limit from first round to last. An hour before dawn, Daniel had about seventeen thousand dollars and Bad Bobby had doubled his stack. As word spread that Bobby was in town, players dropped by the Antlers to check out the action. When the sun came up, there were four times as many railbirds as there were players.
Bad Bobby stretched lazily as the deck was shuffled. ‘Gentlemen, I’m only good for a few more hours. Any objection to putting some guts in this game and raising the limit to a thousand?’
Everyone except Daniel immediately agreed.
‘Thousand it is, then,’ a player named Mad Moses announced.
‘Just a minute,’ Bad Bobby said mildly. He turned to Daniel. ‘How about you, Daniel?’
‘Hell,’ Mad Moses said, ‘he’s winners. If he don’t want to jack it up he can cash ’em out – there’s a whole herd of high rollers drooling to git in the game.’
‘No,’ Bobby said flatly, ‘that ain’t how it’s done. He’s been in the game over twelve hours, and if he says no, that’s all it takes as far as I’m concerned.’
‘A thousand limit is fine with me,’ Daniel murmured. Twenty minutes later he wished Mott Stocker had been there to cut out his tongue.
Daniel started with the seven of hearts in the hole and the eight of hearts up. Bad Bobby was high with the king of hearts showing and when the low man brought it in for the minimum hundred, Bobby raised a thousand. Daniel and three other players called. Daniel caught the eight of diamonds for a pair on the board, Mad Moses caught an ace to go with his offsuit jack, the two others didn’t visibly improve, and Bad Bobby caught the ten of hearts. When the bet reached him, Daniel raised a grand. Moses and Bobby were the only callers. Daniel caught the seven of clubs to pair his hole card, Moses was dealt the six of hearts, and Bad Bobby the trey of hearts, giving him, at best, a pair of kings or a flush draw. Bad Bobby, now low, surprised Daniel by betting the limit. Daniel raised the same. Mad Moses, after long deliberation, folded. Bad Bobby reraised a thousand dollars. Daniel hit it again. So did Bad Bobby. ‘I’m not stopping,’ Daniel said, pushing his call and another grand raise into the pot. ‘You’ve got to catch me and I love the odds on that.’
‘Well,’ Bobby said, ‘count your stack down and we’ll get it all in right now,’ cause I intend to keep raising you back.’ When he’d counted down what remained of his seventeen thousand and shoved it in the pot, Bad Bobby matched it. Counting Mad Moses’ money and the initial bets, there was over forty thousand dollars in the pot.
‘It’s up to the cards now,’ Bobby said. ‘Let’s take a look and see if I can snap your two pair.’
The dealer turned up the jack of hearts for Daniel. Bad Bobby caught the queen of hearts. He had the ace of hearts in the hole. Heart flush.
‘Take the pot,’ Daniel said, trying to control the shocked disappointment in his voice. He smiled ruefully at Bad Bobby, who was stacking the chips. ‘You deserve it, Bobby, catching that queen with so many hearts out, raising all the way – that’s luck.’
‘No, Daniel, that’s knowing when.’
‘You want more chips, Daniel?’ the floor man said at his shoulder.
Daniel started to rise from his chair. ‘I guess not.’
‘If no one objects,’ Bad Bobby said, ‘you can play ten grand off my roll.’
There were no objections.
Bad Bobby cashed out at noon, thirty-thousand dollars winners. Four hours later, his eyes stinging from smoke and exhaustion, Daniel cashed out twenty-one thousand five hundred, fifteen thousand of which he returned to Bad Bobby, who was still awake when Daniel got back to the hotel.
‘You come out, huh?’
‘I won sixty-five hundred.’
‘Good, but don’t forget you can lose.’