Water from My Heart Read Online Free Page A

understand how many of my nights were taken up with poker.
    I was a fair player, but I learned quickly that poker loves no man and good luck can turn to bad with no warning. Further, I detested losing. So I began looking for a way to tilt the odds in my favor. One obvious way was to cheat, which I wasn’t opposed to, but that style of play has a limited shelf life, as does your career once you get caught. Then one night I was invited to a game where I discovered what I soon dubbed the “silver spooners.” Trust fund kids who looked at poker as entertainment. They didn’t really care if they won or lost. They liked the reputation and action either way. Given their reckless behavior, I seized the opportunity and provided a service. By the end of my sophomore year, I had money in the bank and was making a name for myself.
    As a player, I had two abilities that set me apart from most everyone else: First, risk didn’t bother me and never had. I valued nothing, including money, so losing it didn’t ding me like it did others. Second, I could read body language. Like Braille. Neither trait can be coached. You’re either born with them or you’re not. The higher stakes games were invite only and run by the son of a Silicon Valley tycoon. One night I cleaned up and ran the table. Took everyone’s money. And it was a good night. Several thousand. One of my sore loser competitors suggested I cheated and manufactured evidence to support his claim. The invites quickly stopped. As a rising junior with few options, I was in a bit of a bind until he—a fifth-year senior—started running his mouth, so I challenged him to a public winner-take-all. Given his trust fund, he’d spent considerable time in both Vegas and Atlantic City trying to make others think he knew what he was doing. He liked to tell people he was a “professional cardplayer,” but I had my doubts. Nobody as good as he said he was ran his mouth that much. Or if they did, they didn’t run it very long. Sooner or later, poker humbles every man. His would be sooner.
    Winning at poker is easy provided you know which hands to bet on and which hands not. Simple, right? Wrong. Wanting to rattle his saber and set me on my heels, he went all in on the third hand, but his bluff was ill-timed. I matched him, doubled up, and called. When the dealer laid down the river and he realized that a full house always beats three of a kind, the color drained out of his face. The pot sat at $17,000. Half of it was his. The girl propped beneath his arm all of a sudden found an excuse to visit the ladies’ room. As his “friends” pulled away, not wanting to be associated with a loser, I saw the look in his eye and—so help me—I almost told him not to do it. But again, if he was going to be stupid enough…
    He smiled around the room, trying to save face. “Double or nothing.”
    I scraped the money across the table. “What have you got?”
    He dropped the keys to his Audi on the table. The “oohs” and “aahs” rose around the table. His friends patted him on the back, and his girl returned from her potty break to slide in alongside him. I didn’t own a car and the thought of having one appealed to me. I nodded to the dealer, who dealt the cards, and the cards were not kind to him.
    I walked out with not only his $8,500, but also the keys to his car and the beginnings of a storied reputation. Given that the car was his father’s, his father quietly called the following day and offered me a check for the value, which I accepted. Sixty-four thousand dollars. A good night. Then and now, it wasn’t about the money. It was about being told I couldn’t do what I wanted.
    Word spread and I got invites from all over to play. Problem was, I was getting invited by guys who’d done what I’d done—preyed on somebody with money. I could hear it in their voices and read it across their bodies. I played a few games and won a good bit, but they were marinating me. Slow roasting to