In the beginning I just remember having a conversation with a fraternity brother, Dave, mostly about pro soccer players. It was something about how unbelievably lucky they were, because the quality of players in lower divisions was also quite high; we agreed there was probably quite a lot of worthy talent that never broke into the Premier league. Even among professionals, there was no such thing as a perfect player. I related some recent discussion I heard from a commentator or pundit who was reflecting on the aspects of Christian Pulisic’s game — here were some things he did really well, and here were some other things that just weren’t very good — so the manager would have to make a team selection based on this idea that each player in each position was simultaneously like a weapon, and also presented a certain risk, given their attributes.  We spoke about the selection process as well, that if guys had good try-outs on those particular days at eleven-twelve years old, got recognized and selected at that juncture, then that would greatly improve their chances of future success, rate of development, and therefore visibility for future selection, etc. He agreed, and the conclusion was that it was highly possible there was a good amount of ‘latent’ or unrealized talent potential in guys who didn’t perform well as a youngster, simply not being in their best form on those crucial days.

Suddenly I was seated at a poker table. At first it was quite normal; several guys around a table, a hand was in its later rounds.  There was some betting, and calling; then guys started turning their cards over.  I thought I only had the 2nd-best pair, Queens, but then I rechecked my hand and noticed that I had an Ace as well, so that gave me 2-pair, and top-2 at that.  Someone across the table had thought they had won, but then I turned my cards over and took the pot.  To them it must have felt like a bit of deception or attempt at slow-rolling, etc, because I inadvertently allowed the other guy to believe he was the winner for a bit too long.  So then there was a pause, then I was in the middle of a different hand.

It was post flop action; I had Jack-3, and that gave me bottom-2-pair.  That was a pretty ‘monster’ flop for that hand, and I figured a pretty great situation since no one suspects anyone will play that hand, so the 2nd pair is somewhat disguised.  Interestingly, the table and room was set up differently now.  Each player had their own table.  I believe there were three people in this hand: myself, a lady to my left, and Corey from the “Pawn Stars” show across.  Corey bet out 700 on the flop; I just called, thinking that I would allow the top-pair to lead with the belief I and the other opponents were chasing some kind of draw.  The turn came out another 3, which gave me a full house.  This time the betting was checked to me. I wanted to get some value from my nut-ish hand, considering they had gone into check-call mode after getting action on the flop.  I decided to bet 1000. Then it was kind of weird, like it was a dream I was beginning to wake up from, but was wanting to go back to sleep so I could experience the win.  At the same time I experienced confusion about the chip denominations and color scheme.  There seemed to be two kinds of white chips: white with blue, and white with red, plus there were some light-red and other light-blue chips, so I wasn’t clear about how much each was worth.  I got back to the hand after there was a moment of pause or confusion while being unfocused. I stood at my individual table, and it seemed like my chip stack was much smaller than I remembered.  Then there were a couple shopping bags on the table; in one of them there seemed to be some stack of large coins mixed in with some poker chips; that was confusing.  I asked about where all my chips had gone to; Corey said that they were probably all in the pot.  Also I didn’t see my cards on the table, so that was a bit stress-inducing, but I definitely was still in this hand.  I tried to inquire about what had happened; there was an old guy who was looking around like he had no idea whatsoever what had happened or what was happening.  I walked around the room to check different places to see if any of my stuff had been moved, but didn’t have any luck.  So then I went back to my seat as it now was the conclusion of the hand, and found a couple cards which were wedged between some slats on the wooden table, it was Ace-Ace — a great starting hand, but not my hand, and perhaps not good enough to win this hand, so I was in no mood to claim that hand as mine.  Then another fraternity brother, Ryan, popped up and handed me 3-3, which would have been the ‘absolute-nuts’, but again I was wanting to just be honest, so I just declined to accept that one as a substitute in this case. I had J-3. Who took it? What’s the deal?

So then Corey declared himself the winner; I think  he may have had a 3 in his hand to make three-of-a-kind; I said I had Jack-3, making a full house and having the winner but Corey’s attitude was that I could be lying, and he had no incentive to believe me or give me credit for that, not in the mood or feeling obligation to take my word for it.  And because there was some lack of continuity in my presence in the hand, I didn’t have strong evidence for my case.  At the same time I wasn’t just OK to let it go.  I went over to him where he was seated; I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. “I had Jack-3!”  His head slightly tapped the corner of the door frame behind him, and he suddenly looked more like another fraternity brother Anthony. I put my hand up to his head where it had made contact with the frame, saying that I didn’t want to hurt him at all, I just had Jack-3! Then I woke up feeling that full frustration.

About