Friday, May 3, 2013

Thirty-Five: Jack-Deuce of Diamonds--The New Ten-Seven of Clubs

Quincy was the chip leader in a WSOP holdem tournament, holding a stack that surpassed the next nine highest stacks combined.  It was an academy of blind aggression and pure luck.  Quincy, listening to Cypress Hill on his ipod, was hardly paying attention.  He kept checking his cell phone for updates from Piotr on the Natalia Pertman Situation, but he wasn't getting any.  To pass the time, he kept maxing out the betting preflop.  Then he would bet on every flop.  When faced with any resistance, he elected to raise.  On his last hand, he had bet a flop of 

A♠ Q♣ 7♥ 

and gotten called by two villains.

He had bet on a 2♠ turn and been called twice.

And he had bet on a J♥ river.  One player folded in disgust.  The second villain, a middle-aged man with a face that oddly reminded Quincy of a socket wrench, had called, watched Quincy expose two-pair--J♦ 2♦--and then looked at the board and, a circuit shorting out in his head, started blinking rapidly as the pot was pushed once again to Quincy.

"Runner runner," the player to his left said.  "That's your name from now on."

But this was bitterness speaking.  Quincy didn't always go runner-runner.  And he didn't always catch up on the river.  But the table was an abusive relationship, with Quincy as the sole, indifferent abuser . . . an abuser so used to abusing that he wasn't even aware that he was traumatizing the other nine players.

He just wanted the game to be over.  Limit was boring.

Sometimes he caught up on the turn, as when his pocket fours caught up to Q♥ J♥ and A♠ J♠ on a board that ran out 

J♦ J♣ T♠ 4♥ 2

and netted Quincy a monster pot in which both other players hung on till showdown.

Every once in a while, Quincy actually had a great hand and was called or raised every step of the way.  Quincy just kept pushing chips across the betting line.  In this way, his pocket kings got paid off far more than they should have.  He could do no wrong.  Even when he lost, he followed it up with an even bigger win.  He was playing 100 percent of his hands, always raising or reraising, and luck carried him again and again to the winner's circle.

But the players weren't busted out quickly enough.  Quincy just wished that it would end.

If things were going according to plan, Natalia Pertman had read and approved changes to the script.  None of the changes involved her getting naked.  Piotr promised that he would send Quincy a text if any hitch blocked the progress of Plan B.  

He wondered whether he should just leave the table and find out.

With a shrug, he stood, sighed, and wandered off towards the elevator.

Somehow, that simple act of complete indifference towards the game, its players, and the outcome of the tournament put half of the table on Capuchin monkey tilt.  Half of the players raced to imitate Quincy's winning ways.  On a flop of

Q Q♣ T

one player bet, another raised, a third reraised, and the original bettor capped.  

On a J♠ turn, a bet and a raise ended up being called.

On a 4♠ river, the action went exactly as it had on the turn.

The three players exposed

5♣ 4

K♥ 8

and

2 2

and the players laughed as a hill of chips was pushed towards the dotcom millionaire who had rivered his four.

After that hand, the betting continued to be maxed preflop, despite Quincy's absence, and large pots continued to be pushed towards players with shit hands.

"Where'd Runner Runner go?" someone wondered.

None of them would have been able to guess the truth: that he was headed upstairs to see whether Natalia Pertman was finally an occupant in a cage that would be her future home.

He was proud of his craftiness.  He had written the cage, and her imprisonment, into the script.


6 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I have just finished reading all of Quincy's current adventures in a single sitting and am hungering for more. You are a fucking genius my friend. Keep up the good work.

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  3. Your compliment is too kind. Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

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  4. I Quincy ever going to use his patented Double Shove Limp Check in a tournament?

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  5. He's going to have to do the double shove limp check again sometime, isn't he? The Main Event hasn't even started yet. I've got to get going with a lot of stuff.

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  6. Looking forward to the next chapter.

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