At high stakes, the first few rounds are always the most fun. Everyone is still involved and no one has had to rebuy. If anyone is drinking, they’re at that merry stage between overpolite awkwardness and pure boorishness. It was in the dining room of the Barcelona penthouse where Sam Houston was taking on five of the deadliest poker players in Europe.
And he was about to find out exactly how deadly they were.
The early minutes of gameplay was a fun blend of bloated pre-flop pots combined with aggressive post-flop continuation bets. Carlos was quietly bullying anyone he could. Mohammed, whom Sam hadn’t met before, was pleasant and an excellent conversationalist. He was sharing his tale of his move to Spain as a young boy and spoke of his property interests in Barcelona and Madrid.
Everything was polite and convivial until Sam played his first major hand.
Raising it from early position, Sam caught the flop holding the seven and eight of hearts. The board opened with a seven and an eight, prompting a continuation bet from Sam; two callers matched – Sofia, the Bulgarian heiress, and the middle-aged American, only known as Felix but was brash, talkative, and as wide as he was confident.
“Sofia, it’s good to see you attacking,” Antonio said with a smile. “Are you ready to take our money tonight?”
Sofia laughed. “I’ll do my best, but I make no promises. But first – Sam’s money.”
The air in the poker room was thick with tension and the other players seemed on edge. Sam tried to brush it off as just his imagination but he couldn’t shake the gut feeling that something was about to happen. And his gut was almost never wrong.
The turn was dealt, opening the board to include a flush draw, then pairing the board on the river. Sam, who was ahead on the flop, was now losing to trips, a flush, or a boat. There were a lot of possibilities but Sam still felt like he was still winning.
Sofia led out with a bet. Not big enough to scare off Sam, but not thin enough to look like a cheap grab for value. Sam put in a call, hoping to induce a raise from Felix, which he got. Sofia shrugged, folding her cards into the muck with a delicate flick of her wrist that made her jewelry jangle. Sam, however, wasn’t going anywhere, at least not quietly.
“What, you figure I’m weak? Raise me, pretty boy,” said Felix, the folds of fat under his chin undulating in time with his heartbeat.
“Maybe I will. Maybe I’m worried you’ll shove. You brought a rebuy and I don’t think you’re afraid to click the button early. Maybe you want to show us all how rich you are.”
“I don’t need to show anyone how wealthy I am. You all know. You arrived with the cattle. I came by helicopter.”
“You’ve done your research on me. I’m flattered,” said Sam as he pulled his original chips back, showing his intent to raise.
Like black pebbles buried in the sand, Felix’s beady eyes studied Sam minutely. Any facial tic, any break in breathing would be detected. Sam could feel it. His heartbeat was calm, and he was using techniques to keep his breath steady. But his chin was itching. His arm felt restless. He could feel that Felix had the better hand, but not the best possible hand. A flush would make sense. Sam knew he had only two options; fold his weaker hand or convince Felix that he had a full house.
One choice would see the pot slide over to Felix. The other, if not believed, would see his entire stack go to the large American. But, if successful, convincing Felix to fold, would give Sam a huge pot early in the night and make him the chip leader. Sam could see the tension in Felix’s neck.
“All in.” Those two words took him half a second to say and could cost him his entire €500,000 bankroll.
Time stood still. The sun appeared to set as the building was instantly buried under a shadow. In reality, it was only one minute, but to Sam, it felt like an ice age. He replayed memories of other moments in his life when he was all-in. These were distractions, changes of focus that allowed his body to stay alert while keeping his eyes unreadable.
He knew that Felix was looking at him, studying him. Outwardly, Sam’s eyes were fixed on the five cards in the center of the table. In his head, touchstones of his memory flashed in front of him. His parents’ gravestones, the newspaper headlines kept hidden by compassionate family members – Sam did eventually find the headlines and spent hours looking for any evidence that they weren’t truly dead. He wanted to believe it was all an elaborate joke, that his life was a retelling of the last five minutes of the Michael Douglas film, The Game. Anything to hang hope on that it hadn’t really happened. Promising that he would appreciate life more now that he had experienced the terrible pain of losing his parents.
But it was all real.
The car crash moments before he became an orphan.
All of it was real.
The memories sped up. The first time his plane landed in London. Graduation and throwing his mortar into the air as his friends held him in ecstatic congratulation. A dozen arms, all caped in black, soaking up the English sun with its oppressive heat.
The bitter cold of the early morning ski trips where he played poker for the first time. Learning the game with a cup of hot cocoa, sitting by the fire, looking out at the snow. Every bad beat and failed bluff, every miscall. Then, after discovering the game, getting drunk on the cards instead of Vin Chaud at the chalet. Returning to London. Playing online for 16 hours a day, six days a week. Never missing a Sunday. The months raced by in his mind, a blur of numbers, and the cards replaced painful memories. He dreamed of suits and picture cards in his sleep. He had done it this way for five years.
“Fold.”
Sam blinked back to the table, memories stored for the next big hand.
“Nice one, NASA,” laughed Antonio, leaning forward in his seat, hoping to see Sam’s cards, but they were thrown into the muck face down, like always. That was rule number one: Never give anyone information unless there’s a benefit.
“Maybe I take longer getting your money,” said Sofia, running her fingers slowly up Sam’s arm. He didn’t pull away. He wanted to let her think that she was stroking an immovable object, like the table leg. Like he was made of mahogany.
They played for an hour. Felix got short, shoved, and busted. He rebought and began playing even looser. By the time the first break rolled around, nearly two hours had passed. Throughout the game, while everyone else had spent time wandering the rooms, standing for a minute or two between hands to stretch their legs, grabbing a fresh drink or helping themselves to canapés when the waitress brought them around, Sam hadn’t moved. He’d more than doubled his opening stack and was well on his way to crushing the game and it was only just beginning, or so he thought. Sofia had lost the last hand before the break to Felix, but it was small consolation to the American who finally had a few chips to pull in and sort back onto his messy stack.
“Let’s take twenty minutes,” said Antonio when it was time, “You are all welcome to take a look around my apartment.”
Antonio stood up and moved to the back of the room, where his artwork was kept.
“Or you can all stay here and admire my newly-acquired art and learn something about…”
Antonio’s voice trailed off. His eyes scanned the glass cabinet, noticing each piece of pottery, every jewel, each bracelet, necklace, and trinket under the transparent cover, still in its chosen location, all but one.
‘The Picasso,” he said, voice trembling, his neck turning red as blood rushed to his head. “Someone has taken the drawing.” Five pairs of eyes looked up at him in shock.
“What are you talking about?” asked Sam.
“It… it is gone.” He looked as if he was about to pass out through a combination of anger and confusion.
Sam rose from his seat, quickly followed by Sofia and Mohammed. Felix was still counting his money at the table. The four of them crowded the glass case. It looked immaculate. Untouched. But right in the middle of the display was a pathetic-looking felt plinth where the Picasso had been. The case was undisturbed but the Picasso, as impossible as it seemed, was gone.
The room started to feel smaller. Tight. Constricted. The walls appeared to be closing in around Sam, exacerbated by the proximity of those around him, crowded together, staring at an impossibility.
Antonio’s breathing became noticeably shallower, bringing back Sam from the precipice of disaster. He put a comforting arm around Antonio, “Did you take it out after you showed me?”
“I didn’t touch it after I showed it to you. We sat down and played. But people have been walking around. All of you!”
Antonio had moved from denial to anger in an instant as he glared at the four players standing around the sealed case.
“Any of you could have broken into the case and stolen the drawing.”
“But it is not broken, Antonio,” Sofia said softly, not wanting to upset Antonio more than he was. Mohammed was shaking his head incredulously and Carlos stood in shock, a confused look on his face.
“I haven’t moved from my seat,” said Sam, earnestly. “But everyone else has. It must have been someone. If this is a joke…”
But no one was laughing, least of all Antonio.
“You are all here with me now, looking shocked. But you are poker players…”
Antonio stopped mid-sentence. It was at that moment he realized he was wrong, there was one more player. His eyes flew to the table. The others followed his lead.
Since Antonio had announced the drawing had gone missing, there was one person who hadn’t said a word. The American, Felix. Sam looked over. Felix’s chips were now stacked and perfectly ordered in front of his steepled fingers, while he sat as straight and still as the chips, not moving a muscle, a slight smirk on his lips.
Sofia gasped.
Sam saw exactly why Felix hadn’t moved a muscle.
The handle of a blade was protruding from the back of his neck.
About the Author: Paul Seaton has written about poker for over 10 years, interviewing some of the best players ever to play the game such as Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth. Over the years, Paul has reported live from tournaments such as the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and the European Poker Tour. He has also written for other poker brands where he was Head of Media, as well as BLUFF magazine, where he was Editor.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.