Hearts

A young man goes on holiday and is cheated of his money in a poker game. A dubious shark teaches him how to play better. On the way home he plays a game with some students and faces a moral dilemma.

The boy could not have been much younger than me as I was only a few months over twenty-one and had deliberately skipped shaving to look a bit older, but he looked more like high school. He wore a blue and white T shirt and khaki half length shorts and a white hat with a Yankees logo. He seemed to know his way around. The ten twenties, he said, in a cocky self confident way as if he had beaten them time after time. Start with a big roll, at least a thousand. Hmm, I only had a thousand. They'll play straight into you. You know every time if they have something or are bluffing.

It was like another world even compared to a country so different from London. The light seemed like daylight but no windows in sight. I could not help checking but it was true there are no clocks. It is made to look exactly the same all times of day and night. They say there are pumps to put oxygen into the air so people feel more awake. I was excited, certainly, but also half scared to death. The playing room was in the far corner and you had to walk past all the gaming tables to get there. I don't suppose many people stopped on the way in but maybe some winners offloaded their takings as they left. I looked forward to playing the blackjack table with someone else's money after doubling.

Quite a few games were on in the room and I saw some tough looking characters at the far table. Two I recognised from TV. I signed the queue for a ten/twenty dollar game, giving me fifty bets. Railing a while I could see they played pretty normally. One guy liked to raise a lot, another seemed to have a habit of floating. I saw him take down a couple of pots with large bets on the turn. Most were tight. I felt a touch of fear when a player was busted and stood up. I stuck my chips on the table and sat down just as I would in Sergio's.

As is my habit I didn't play a hand the first two rounds, just sat and observed my opponents. This left me down sixty then I raised twice and both times all folded. Over the next three rounds of play I won a hundred. I carried on like this for about an hour and found myself with fourteen fifty on the table. I could have stopped there. It is all so easy with hindsight. But gamblers never stop. That is why it is so important to have bankroll management. I picked up ace and ten of hearts. Two players had already limped in to the hand, which was unusual, and it was possible one of them was hiding something strong. I called and there was no raise. Clearly others also thought someone was slowplaying. The flop came nine eight three with two hearts.

I put forty into the pot. Two players called. One was the floater, who was on the button, and the other a tight player two places to my right. I figured he might have straight or lower flush cards. Well I didn't have to worry about the straight because the dealer turned over a beautiful two of hearts, giving me nut flush. I could only be beaten if the board paired on the end. I bet a hundred. The button called and the other player folded. Shame, I was hoping for an underflush.

The dealer turned over the last card. It was not what I wanted to see. The two of spades. Now there was a pair on the board so it was possible for my remaining opponent to have a full house. I knew he would bet if I checked and my usual strategy in these situation has always been to bet and fold to a large raise. This guy might well raise anyway with nothing, just to test me out. I put in a hundred.

He thought for a long time. Caro says that this is a very reliable tell that someone has a strong hand. In my experience all the aggressive players know this perfectly well and expect their opponents to know it too, so they pause for a long time before bluffing. Kind of double bluff. It must only have been thirty seconds but it was murder waiting. "I'm all in," he said, pushing his enormous stack to the centre.

I froze, suddenly sweating. I realised I didn't know what to do. I had planned to fold but was sure he was bluffing. Nine hundred dollars to call, a hundred and sixty lost if I folded, and two and a half thousand in my stack if I won the hand. I looked at him. He looked at me. Time to try and improve my odds by asking a question.

"You bluffed two thirds of the hands you have played to the end, why do I think you have the goods this time?"

"You from New York?" he said. Well, yes, no, only Emma was, we had been there the past month in her digs. As soon as he spoke I knew who he was. Igor Aleyev. One of the legions of small time pros that inhabit Vegas. From Texas, but that was all I knew about him. He had been on TV when he busted a big name early on in the Main Event two months ago. "I'm from Brooklyn, son," he said. "Let me tell you this. As one New Yorker to another. I'm gonna break a rule I kept all my life. So be grateful.

"You're a decent honest college kid. Like my boy. You brought a thousand bucks to Vegas hoping to gamble it up. Stupidly you put it all on one table in the biggest game you could afford. Now you're in trouble. I'll tell you this once and you better listen. I thrash the butt off your sorry little flush all the way back to Queens. So save your nine hundred and you can tell your mommy you still got some left, leave my city to the stupid gamblers who don't care about their money, and don't ever play poker again. You ain't no good at it."

It was quite a speech and I was about to push my cards into the centre. But there was no way he was from Brooklyn, no way. And he had me wrong too. He looked at me and for a second his gaze dropped. In that fraction it all came to me in a rush. I knew with cold certain clarity as if I had read through his eyes into his dark little soul. Then the shutters came up again.

"I call," I said confidently.

He smiled like a viper as he turned over a pair of threes for a full house. I went numb, cold. The dealer pushed my chips to him in a smooth motion. He must have had a lot of practice. "Do you wish to rebuy, sir?" He knew perfectly well I had no more money. It was all I could do to push my chair back and stagger out of the way for the next player to join the table.

I am not sure what I thought as I made my way up towards the bar but as I did a railbird, a man with a small moustache and strange penetrating eyes, nodded at me. Not being in a mood for conversation I went to get past but he turned to follow. I did not want this.

"You completely busted?"

"Er, yeah."

"Get you a drink?"

"I guess."

He signalled to the waiter and ordered a whiskey and soda, gin and water for himself. It did not strike me at the time, but he had not asked what I wanted.

"That guy you played, Aleyev, you come across him before?"

"No."

"You're the fourth he's busted this week. So far. I see him doing it again and again. Just a small time pro with a couple of tricks."

"Right. So what are the big time pros like?"

"I'll show you. Not now, it's getting late. Tomorrow. You need money?"

Without waiting for a reply he took out his wallet and slid a handful of notes into my hand. Ten tens, I could see without counting. I stuffed it into my pocket then started to wonder what obligations I was getting into.

Emma was in our room, on the phone. She switched off when she saw my face.

"You lost it Daniel. All?" She never called me Daniel.

This was already bad. I looked at her helplessly.

She jumped off the bed and to my shock she slapped me. On the face. It was unexpected and it hurt. Not a lot but it penetrated. Then she slapped me again. It hurt more but did not go through me in quite the same way.

"You just threw all my money away on a game of cards."

I could not help thinking she would not have been like this if I had won, but I was not going to make too much of a point of it. And since when was it her money? I opened my wallet and showed her the hundred, as if she might think this somehow made things better.

"You managed to avoid gambling your last dollars. Well done."

"Er, well actually."

"Actually?"

"Someone gave them to me."

"Gave them to you?"

"Are you going to repeat everything I say?"

"Everything you say. Until you tell me what actually happened."

"I just got beat. I know I should not have put all my money on but it was two and a half thousand if I won. Then this guy Marco came up to me at the bar and ..."

"Is he gay?"

I must have looked a mess but inside I was completely crumpled. She went into the bathroom.

"Here, honey, you gonna need this." Her fake Southern accent was bad news. I didn't like her being sarcastic. It had to be a pack of lube, not the kind of thing I had even seen before. "So thoughtful they are in these hotels. Guess it must happen pretty often, so many young men desperate for money."

We had a bottle of whiskey in the room, so I picked up a glass and splashed it half full. She hated me drinking straight from the bottle. Nothing to go with it. It burned my mouth and I felt sick. I went into the bathroom and spat it into the sink.

She was blocking the doorway. "You go off now and bend over for your new boyfriend?" in her most taunting tone. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

"And what would that be?" It was my turn to get angry.

"How about your wedding vows?"

Now I was confused. We were not even engaged yet.

"You off to see some bloke you met ten minutes ago and you never even think about me," she half shouted. I had never seen her like this but in my self-disgust it seemed somehow right to be bullied and humiliated. I banged the corner of my head painfully against the doorframe as she grabbed me by my jacket, pulled me into the room and pushed me backwards onto the bed.

"I come first, second and every time and don't you go forgetting it," she said as she forced herself on top of me. She snapped my belt open and I could not believe that girl had magic for me like no one I have ever met. Only seconds previously I had been considering unimaginable horrors and now she was hitting me like a taser. Even the fact she had not waited for a condom left me scarily helpless, and although we weren't about to be married on this Vegas trip I could feel my life solidifying as she floated above me and in some distant part of the room there seemed an explosion that totally altered my future and I settled back down gasping onto the bed. It must have taken all of two minutes.

She pulled off my damp clothes and dumped them on the floor. We lay naked on the bed and she pulled me on top of her.

"Don't think I've finished with you yet," she said, dragging me up. I didn't want to think that at all, I would have been happy for it to go on all night and all the next day although at some point when it was pitch black outside she must have finally called time and pulled the covers over me because suddenly bright sunlight was streaming in the windows and she was up and dressed and chirpily telling me how it was time to go down for breakfast.

I did not see Marco in the restaurant but later in the morning I came down to hang out a while on the rail and he was there, watching, He nodded to me and though I was not sure whether I wanted to I felt like I had to move over to where he was standing. He pointed to a table.

"There's Aleyev. He's played an hour already. Down a hundred, there aren't many marks around at this time so he'll lose a bit to the other pros. He'll take more action when the tourists start in towards midday. One of the pros'll move off to let him get a shot."

We watched a few minutes but nothing was really happening. He produced a deck and clicked them in the air. Wanna play cards?

I though there was little point playing to give him back the hundred dollars. But again he seemed to have read my mind.

"Just for chips. You don't wanna play for money again. Not till you learnt the moves."

He chose a table and gave the cards a few riffles. Turning the deck on its face he spread them. Four aces on top, then four deuces and so on to the kings on the bottom. Using the king of spades from the bottom as a scoop he gathered them up, gave them two riffles and spread them again. This time they were in suits, ace to king of clubs, then the diamonds and the king of spades once again on the bottom.

"Took me seven years to get perfect at that," he said. "You can imagine the fun I had as a teenager."

He gave me the pack and chucked a thousand in reds whites and blacks for each of us from his jacket pocket. "You deal every time. Don't want to get accused of cheating."

I had cards in my own jacket pocket so I took them out and shuffled them leaving his deck on the side, and he nodded appreciatively at the precaution. I dealt out and he had my chips soon enough anyway. I won a lot of small pots where I had good cards and he won some larger ones where he had better cards and a lot of hands where neither of us had anything.

"Next I want you to show me your cards every time," he said.

"I'd be pretty stupid to give you that much of an advantage."

"Sure. I have a pretty good idea what they are anyway. Just carry on and each hand I'll guess your cards. If I get it right you have to show them."

Once again he beat me easily and he got my cards right three times. In the third game he managed six correct reads. He divided up the chips and we started again but this time I may as well have had them face up. It was impossible.

After I picked up my cards and he told me I had Ace-Jack I gave up.

"Do you have a camera on me?"

"Actually, yes," he said. "But not how you think."

He stepped behind the chair and produced a small movie camera from an alcove in the wall. Going over to the side he plugged it into one of the hotel TVs. He showed me some of the hands we had played. Even to me it was obvious that I was becoming increasingly frustrated as the games proceeded.

"Look, here you have junk, say eight-three. Compare this to your Ace-King hand. Let's list out the obvious points of difference, in your face, your hands, how you count your chips and how long you take to act. And then look at the way you behave after the hand. Watch people after they have won or folded and you will always know whether they had strong or weak hands.

After we had examined me closely I had come to realise just how much information I was giving away when I played a hand. So he showed me how to mask my tells by adopting a true poker face, and the other way to mask them by mimicking a different type of hand. I soon realised how I could use movement make opponents fold or call as I wanted. I was starting to understand how that Aleyev had tricked me.

We broke for a while and I wanted to asked the question that had been on my mind all morning. Of course he beat me to it.

"Why do I do all this?"

"Yeah." This made me feel uneasy.

"You think I'm a f*g and I'm after something."

"Well, it kinda crossed my mind, but ..."

He laughed a bit. "Kinda crossed my mind too I guess. Like Aleyev I make a nice living off tourists on the ten twenties. But I ain't gonna worry you. Already seen your lady. She's kinda nice. You getting married?"

"I guess we will eventually."

"Get it done soon, fella. I'd say she's ready for you."

We paused a few seconds. "She got her mum to wire some money from New York." I reached for my wallet to give the hundred back.

"Keep it," he shrugged. "It's only pieces of paper."

I saw Marco again Thursday. Emma had recognised a fellow student at Brooklyn College and a group of them had gone off to Lake Mead for the day leaving me to my own devices. He taught me how to recognise the signs that other people make when they have strong or weak hands, and how it varies so much from person to person. Then I understood how it had taken a few games for him to work me out properly. Later he taught me how to make moves on people by working out whether they would call or fold to a bet, and gave me some tips on table talk. He left me to explore these myself. I was sure there were plenty enough secrets he simply was not going to give me. But at the same time I watched the games, and particularly Aleyev who I learned had been a KGB agent and emigrated to the US after the fall of the Iron Curtain. He had a face that looked totally trustworthy and reliable even though you knew he could not possibly be like that. His eye movements could force people into doing his will. I went through them again and again. I started to understand how a guy like Marco could practise a trick for seven years.

A college kid was sitting at the table, my age or a little older. Aleyev was chatting to him and I had a cold feeling, knew he was about to get stung. The kid moved his chips to the centre of the table and I watched him crumple as the cards were shown. Red faced he pushed his chair back and lurched to the rail. As he came past I led him to a seat and called the waiter to get him a drink.

"About three or four a week," I said, once the initial threat of tears had passed.

"That how he makes his living?"

"Sure. Just has a couple of tricks to trap the tourists."

"The guy told me this table would be dead easy."

Now I had a real bad feeling. "Guy?" Unconsciously I started rubbing the bruised area on the side of my head. I knew what he was going to say and did not want to hear it.

"Yeah, a kid. Impossibly young to be here but seemed to know what he was doing."

For the first time in my life I could actually feel the hairs on the back of my head standing up. The sound of the air conditioning behind was the only thing I could hear.

"Sure he did. That's Aleyev's kid. I don't doubt."

He sat back in his chair.

"You too, I guess?"

"Yeah, twelve hundred, couple of days ago."

"But it wasn't all of your money."

"Yeah."

"So what did you do? I don't even have enough for my bar bill."

"Guy gave me a bit. Taught me how to play too."

"What guy?"

"Guy called Marco. He's a magician."

"And what ... Uh-oh."

Raising an eyebrow I cocked my head a little. I paused a few seconds, not moving. "Ask him for five hundred," I heard myself saying. "He's just over by the bar."

The kid looked dubious then made up his mind. He got up and walked towards the bar. I did not want to see so I turned back to watch the game. I struggled to convince myself I had done a couple of people a favour, Vegas style. Sin City.

Friday we endured the tremendous heat of Vegas as we traipsed the sights but I found the place artificial and unexciting until we found a market, a real one, and I bought Em a ring for ten dollars. She wore it on the flight to Philadelphia, where we had lunch with her parents before taking the New York train. I watched the windows as it came into the station and sure enough there was a group of four college kids with a deck and a spare table opposite. We went in and sat down.

Em looked over. "Can I watch?" Without waiting for a reply I asked "You playing poker?" "No, bridge. But we could start a game I guess." I could almost feel his greed eyeing up our money.

We joined their table and took our wallets out. "Is forty ok?" I asked. The older of the group, definitely the brother of one of the freshmen, said fine. He took out a hundred. "Min forty max a hundred?" "Sure."

They each took out a hundred. The older guy introduced himself as Todd. "Brunson?" I asked and they all laughed. The others were Dave and Sam, Todd's brother, and Richie whose buy-in was done out of pure bravado as I could see it left his wallet completely empty. It seemed to me they had the worse of the deal, with four hundred of their money against only eighty of ours but I guess for three of them at least it did not really matter much anyway, they just wanted to prove themselves against us.

They weren't bad, to be sure, but after an hour's play I had them pretty well figured out. By this time I was up to about a hundred and twenty, Richie was slightly below me �" being the one money mattered most to he had played the soundest game. The others played more aggressively. Dave had a huge pile of chips and both Sam and Todd had rebought for a second hundred. Em had thirty-five, having hardly played any hands.

Todd dealt and Richie and I called for a dollar. Todd raised to three. He often put in small raises and I figured he had a decent ace or two high cards like king-queen. We both called and the flop came down ace-nine and a four with two hearts. Todd liked it and so did Richie, but he just checked knowing that he would face a big raise if he bet, and so did I. Todd bet five and we both called.

The next card was another heart, the eight. Richie had a flush, almost certainly the top flush with something like king-jack of hearts. He was considering whether to put all his chips in and take down the $24 pot but eventually decided to bet $12 and hope the board did not pair on the river. I just called and Todd unwisely came along but it was obvious by now he only had a pair of aces, probably he had started with ace-king or ace-queen.

The river was a second four, and this made Richie nervous. It was pretty unlikely I had made a full house but I had to be calling with something. I had shown down a couple of bluffs during the game but had not been particularly active. The pot by now was $80 so he bet twenty into it.

"I'm all-in" I declared, pushing my chips forward.

Todd would have called me as a bluff catcher but he had to worry about Richie's hand. After a few moments thought he folded.

Richie looked scared as he fingered his cards. He counted his chips, checking I had him covered, which he knew perfectly well already because I had seen him counting my stack when he hit the flush on the previous card. "I figure," he said. "You've shown two bluffs and won four genuine hands, and on top of that won seven hands when opponents folded. I reckon you're one in three for a bluff here. It costs me another $87 to win $254." He looked at me, desperate to get some information to improve his chances. "Are you beating a pair of aces?"

It was a common question, to which the answer "Of course I am beating a pair of aces" would give a huge amount of information to an observant opponent. So it was my turn to reverse the table talk.

"Richie," I said in a weary but authoritative voice, "you have made the classic mistake of poker. You put all your money on the table and now have to face a decision for the whole lot. I saw your wallet was empty after you bought in. I don't normally do this but I know how you'll have to drag yourself home and tell your mom you don't have anything left and admit to her you lost it in a game. So I'll tell you this once and once only. I have your sorry little flush beaten all the way back to whatever part of Brooklyn you come from. Don't play poker, you value your money far too much, just stick to bridge. You are much better at it."

The train was slowing as we approached the Hudson and everyone knew this would be the last hand. He looked at me, not knowing whether to trust me, and I could see caution prevailing in his mind. This was the time to pull the trigger. One little look and he would see me as a scheming lying coward and call for all his money. But I could not do it. I thought of the poor kid carrying his hurt head up the garden path. I thought of myself spending another eighty dollars of his money which in all reality I did not need at all. I thought of Marco and Aleyev and his kid breaking tourists and recycling the money for what I could not even say in my own head. I looked at him gently and nodded and he meekly pushed his cards face down to the centre of the table.

I gathered up my chips and pushed the cards away but I could see the curious faces and decided I owed them one last favour. After all they had given me over a hundred dollars and I would never play any of them again. They probably wouldn't understand but Em would and if she though of the money we could always talk about it later. So I flipped the cards over and proudly showed off themy  fours.The boy could not have been much younger than me as I was only a few months over twenty-one and had deliberately skipped shaving to look a bit older, but he looked more like high school. He wore a blue and white T shirt and khaki half length shorts and a white hat with a Yankees logo. He seemed to know his way around. The ten twenties, he said, in a cocky self confident way as if he had beaten them time after time. Start with a big roll, at least a thousand. Hmm, I only had a thousand. They'll play straight into you. You know every time if they have something or are bluffing.

It was like another world in this place. The light seemed like daylight but no windows in sight. I could not help checking but it was true there are no clocks. It is engineered to look exactly the same at all times of day and night. They say there are pumps to put oxygen into the air so people feel more awake. I was excited, certainly, but also half scared to death. The poker room was in the far corner, and you had to walk past all the gaming tables to get there. I don't suppose many people stopped on the way in but maybe some winners offloaded their takings as they left. I looked forward to playing the blackjack table with someone else's money after doubling my thousand.

There were quite a few games in the room and I saw some tough looking characters at the far table. Two I recognised from TV. I signed the queue for a ten/twenty dollar game, giving me fifty bets. I railed a while. They played pretty normally. One guy liked to raise a lot, another seemed to have a habit of floating. I saw him take down a couple of pots with large bets on the turn. Most were tight. I felt a touch of fear when a player was busted and stood up. I stuck my chips on the table and sat down just as I would in Sergio's.

As is my custom I didn't play a hand the first two rounds, just sat and observed my opponents. This left me down sixty then I raised twice and both times all folded. Over the next three rounds of play I won a hundred. I carried on like this for about an hour and found myself with fourteen fifty on the table. I could have stopped there. It is all so easy with hindsight. But gamblers never stop. That is why it is so important to have bankroll management. I picked up ace and ten of hearts. Two players had already limped in to the hand, which was unusual, and it was possible one of them was hiding something strong. I called and there was no raise. Clearly others also thought someone was slowplaying. The flop came nine eight three with two hearts.

I put forty into the pot. Two players called. One was the floater, who was on the button, and the other a tight player two places to my right. I figured he might have straight or lower flush cards. Well I didn't have to worry about the straight because the dealer turned over a beautiful two of hearts, giving me nut flush. I could only be beaten if the board paired on the end. I bet a hundred. The button called and the other player folded. Shame, I was hoping for an underflush.

The dealer turned over the last card. It was not what I wanted to see. The two of spades. Now there was a pair on the board so it was possible for my remaining opponent to have a full house. I knew he would bet if I checked and my usual strategy in these situation has always been to bet and fold to a large raise. This guy might well raise anyway. I put in a hundred.

He thought for a long time. Caro says that this is a very reliable tell that someone has a strong hand. In my experience all the aggressive players know this perfectly well and expect their opponents to know it too, so they pause for a long time before bluffing. It must only have been thirty seconds but it was murder waiting. "I'm all in," he said, pushing his enormous stack to the centre.

I froze. I realised I didn't know what to do. I had planned to fold but was sure he was bluffing. Nine hundred dollars to call, a hundred and sixty lost if I folded, and two and a half thousand in my stack if I won the hand. I looked at him. He looked at me. Time to try and improve my odds by asking a question.

"You bluffed two thirds of the hands you have played to the end, why do I think you have the goods this time?"

"You from New York?" he said. As soon as he spoke I knew who he was. Igor Aleyev. One of the legions of small time pros that inhabit Vegas. From Texas, but that was all I knew about him. He had been on TV when he busted a big name early on in the Main Event two months ago. "I'm from Brooklyn, son," he said. "Let me tell you this. As one New Yorker to another. I'm gonna break a rule I kept all my life. So be grateful.

"You're a decent honest college kid. Like my boy. You brought a thousand bucks to Vegas hoping to gamble it up. Stupidly you put it all on one table in the biggest game you could afford. Now you're in trouble. I'll tell you this once and you better listen. I thrash the butt off your sorry little Ace high flush all the way back to Queens. So save your nine hundred and you can tell your mommy you still got some left, leave my city to the stupid gamblers who don't care about their money, and don't ever play poker again. You ain't no good at it."

It was quite a speech and I was about to push my cards into the centre. But there was no way he was from Brooklyn, no way. He looked at me and for a second his gaze dropped. In that fraction it all came to me in a rush. I knew with cold certain clarity as if I had read through his eyes into his dark little soul. Then the shutters came up again.

"I call," I said confidently.

He smiled like a viper as he turned over a pair of threes for a full house. I went numb. The dealer pushed my chips to him in a smooth motion. He must have had a lot of practice. "Do you wish to rebuy, sir?" He knew perfectly well I had no more money. It was all I could do to push my chair back and make way for the next player to join the table.

I am not sure what I thought as I staggered up towards the bar but on the way a railbird, a man with a small moustache and strange penetrating eyes, nodded at me. Not being in a mood for conversation I went to get past but he turned to follow. I did not want this.

"You completely busted?"

"Er, yeah."

"Get you a drink?"

"I guess."

He signalled to the waiter and ordered a whiskey and soda, gin and water for himself. It did not strike me at the time, but he had not asked what I wanted.

"That guy you played, Aleyev, you come across him before?"

"No."

"You're the fourth he's busted this week. So far. I see him doing it again and again. Just a small time pro with a couple of tricks."

"Right. So what are the big time pros like?"

"I'll show you. Not now, it's getting late. Tomorrow. You need money?"

Without waiting for a reply he took out his wallet and slid a handful of notes into my hand. Ten tens, I could see without counting. I stuffed it into my pocket then started to wonder if I was entering into any obligations.

Emma was in our room, on the phone. She switched off when she saw my face.

"You lost it Daniel. All?" She never called me Daniel.

This was already bad. I looked at her helplessly.

She jumped off the bed and to my shock she slapped me. On the face. It was unexpected and it hurt. Not a lot but it penetrated. Then she slapped me again. It hurt more but did not go through me in quite the same way.

"You just threw all my money away on a game of cards."

I could not help thinking that she would not have been like this if I had won, but I was not going to make too much of a point of it. And since when was it her money? I opened my wallet and showed her the hundred, as if she might think this somehow made things better.

"You managed to avoid gambling your last dollars. Well done."

"Er, well actually."

"Actually?"

"Someone gave them to me."

"Gave them to you?"

"Are you going to repeat everything I say?"

"Everything you say. Until you tell me what actually happened."

"I just got beat. I know I should not have put all my money on but it was two and a half thousand if I won. Then this guy Marco came up to me at the bar and ..."

"Is he gay?"

I must have looked a mess but inside I was completely crumpled. She went into the bathroom.

"Here, honey, you gonna need this." Her fake Southern accent was bad news. I didn't like her being sarcastic. It had to be a pack of lube, not the kind of thing I had even seen before. "So thoughtful they are in these hotels. Guess it must happen pretty often, so many young men desperate for money."

We had a bottle of whiskey in the room, so I picked up a glass and splashed it half full. She hated me drinking straight from the bottle. Nothing to go with it. It burned my mouth and I felt sick. I went into the bathroom and spat it into the sink.

She was blocking the doorway. "You go off now and bend over for your new boyfriend?" in her most taunting tone. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

"And what would that be?" It was my turn to get angry.

"How about your wedding vows?"

Now I was confused. We were not even engaged yet.

"You off to see some bloke you met ten minutes ago and you never even think about me," she half shouted. I had never seen her like this but in my self-disgust it seemed somehow right to be bullied and humiliated. I banged the corner of my head painfully against the doorframe as she grabbed me by my jacket, pulled me into the room and pushed me backwards onto the bed.

"I come first, second and every time and don't you go forgetting it," she said as she forced herself on top of me. She snapped my belt open and I could not believe that girl had magic for me like no one I have ever met. Only seconds previously I had been considering unimaginable horrors and now she was hitting me like a taser. Even the fact she had not waited for a condom left me scarily helpless, and although we weren't about to be married on this Vegas trip I could feel my life solidifying as she floated above me and in some distant part of the room there seemed an explosion that totally altered my future and I settled back down gasping onto the bed. It must have taken all of two minutes.

She pulled off my damp clothes and dumped them on the floor. We lay naked on the bed and she pulled me on top of her.

"Don't think I've finished with you yet," she said, dragging me up. I didn't want to think that at all, I would have been happy for it to go on all night and all the next day although at some point when it was pitch black outside she must have finally called time and pulled the covers over me because suddenly bright sunlight was streaming in the windows and she was up and dressed and chirpily telling me how it was time to go down for breakfast.

I did not see Marco in the restaurant but later in the morning I came down to hang out a while on the rail and he was there, watching, He nodded to me and though I was not sure whether I wanted to I felt like I had to move over to where he was standing. He pointed to a table.

"There's Aleyev. He's played an hour already. Down a hundred, there aren't many marks around at this time so he'll lose a bit to the other pros. He'll take more action when the tourists start in towards midday. One of the pros'll move off to let him get a shot."

We watched a few minutes but nothing was really happening. He produced a deck and clicked them in the air. Wanna play cards?

I though there was little point playing to give him back the hundred dollars. But again he seemed to have read my mind.

"Just for chips. You don't wanna play for money again. Not till you learnt the moves."

He chose a table and gave the cards a few riffles. Turning the deck on its face he spread them. Four aces on top, then four deuces and so on to the kings on the bottom. Using the king of spades from the bottom as a scoop he gathered them up, gave them two riffles and spread them again. This time they were in suits, ace to king of clubs, then the diamonds and the king of spades once again on the bottom.

"Took me seven years to get perfect at that," he said. "You can imagine the fun I had as a teenager."

He gave me the pack and chucked a thousand in reds whites and blacks for each of us from his jacket pocket. "You deal every time. Don't want to get accused of cheating."

I had cards in my coat pocket so I took them out and shuffled them leaving his deck on the side, and he nodded appreciatively at the precaution. I dealt out and he had my chips soon enough anyway. I won a lot of small pots where I had good cards and he won some larger ones where he had better cards and a lot of hands where neither of us had anything.

"Next time I want you to show me your cards every time," he said.

"I'd be pretty stupid to give you that much of an advantage."

"Sure. I have a pretty good idea what they are anyway. Just carry on and each hand I'll guess your cards. If I get it right you have to show them."

Once again he beat me easily and he got my cards right three times. In the third game he managed six correct reads. He divided up the chips and we started again but this time I may as well have had them face up. It was impossible.

After I picked up my cards and he told me I had Ace-Jack I gave up.

"Do you have a camera on me?"

"Actually, yes," he said. "But not how you think."

He stepped behind the chair and produced a small movie camera from an alcove in the wall. Going over to the side he plugged it into one of the hotel TVs. He showed me some of the hands we had played. Even to me it was obvious that I was becoming increasingly frustrated as the games proceeded.

"Look, here you have junk, say eight-three. Compare this to your Ace-King hand. Let's list out the obvious points of difference, in your face, your hands, how you count your chips and how long you take to act. And then look at the way you behave after the hand. Watch people after they have won or folded and you will always know whether they had strong or weak hands.

After we had examined me closely I had come to realise just how much information I was giving away when I played a hand. So he showed me how to mask my tells by adopting a true poker face, and the other way to mask them by mimicking a different type of hand. I soon realised how I could use movement make opponents fold or call as I wanted. I was starting to understand how that Aleyev had tricked me.

We broke for a while and I wanted to asked the question that had been on my mind all morning. Of course he beat me to it.

"Why do I do all this?"

"Yeah." This made me feel uneasy.

"You think I'm a f*g and I'm after something."

"Well, it kinda crossed my mind, but ..."

He laughed a bit. "Kinda crossed my mind too I guess. Like Aleyev I make a nice living off tourists on the ten twenties. But I ain't gonna worry you. Already seen your lady. She's kinda nice. You getting married?"

"I guess we will eventually."

"Get it done soon, fella. I'd say she's ready for you."

We paused a few seconds. "She got her mom to wire some money." I reached for my wallet to give the hundred back.

"Keep it," he shrugged. "It's only pieces of paper."

I saw Marco again Thursday. Emma had recognised a fellow student at BrooklynCollege and a group of them had gone off to Lake Mead for the day leaving me to my own devices. He taught me how to recognise the signs that other people make when they have strong or weak hands, and how it varies so much from person to person. Then I understood how it had taken a few games for him to work me out properly. Later he taught me how to make moves on people by working out whether they would call or fold to a bet, and gave me some tips on table talk. He left me to explore these myself. I was sure there were plenty enough secrets he simply was not going to give me. But at the same time I watched the games, and particularly Aleyev who I learned had been a KGB agent and emigrated to the US after the fall of the Iron Curtain. He had a face that looked totally trustworthy and reliable even though you knew he could not possibly be like that. His eye movements could force people into doing his will. I went through them again and again. I started to understand how a guy like Marco could practise a trick for seven years.

A college kid was sitting at the table, my age or a little older. Aleyev was chatting to him and I had a cold feeling, knew he was about to get stung. The kid moved his chips to the centre of the table and I watched him crumple as the cards were shown. Red faced he pushed his chair back and lurched to the rail. As he came past I led him to a seat and called the waiter to get him a drink.

"About three or four a week," I said, once the initial threat of tears had passed.

"That how he makes his living?"

"Sure. Just has a couple of tricks to trap the tourists."

"The guy told me this table would be dead easy."

Now I had a real bad feeling. "Guy?" Unconsciously I started rubbing the bruised area on the side of my head. I knew what he was going to say and did not want to hear it.

"Yeah, a kid. Impossibly young to be here but seemed to know what he was doing."

For the first time in my life I could actually feel the hairs on the back of my head standing up. The sound of the air conditioning behind was the only thing I could hear.

"Sure he did. That's Aleyev's kid. I don't doubt."

He sat back in his chair.

"You too, I guess?"

"Yeah, twelve hundred, couple of days ago."

"But it wasn't all of your money."

"Yeah."

"So what did you do? I don't even have enough for my bar bill."

"Guy gave me a bit. Taught me how to play too."

"What guy?"

"Guy called Marco. He's a magician."

"And what ... Uh-oh."

I raised an eyebrow and cocked my head a little. I paused a few seconds, not moving. "Ask him for five hundred," I heard myself saying. "He's just over by the bar."

The kid looked dubious then made up his mind. He got up and walked towards the bar. I did not want to see so I turned back to watch the game. I struggled to convince myself I had done a couple of people a favour, Vegas style. SinCity.

Friday we endured the tremendous heat of the city as we traipsed the sights but I found the place artificial and unexciting until we found a market, a real one, and I bought Em a ring for ten dollars. She wore it on the flight to Philadelphia, where we had lunch with her parents before taking the New York train. I watched the windows as it came into the station and sure enough there was a group of four college kids with a deck and a spare table opposite. We went in and sat down.

Em looked over. "Can I watch?" Without waiting for a reply I asked "You playing poker?" "No, bridge. But we could start a game I guess." I could almost feel his greed eyeing up our money.

We joined their table and took our wallets out. "Is forty ok?" I asked. The older of the group, definitely the brother of one of the freshmen, said fine. He took out a hundred. "Min forty max a hundred?" "Sure."

They each took out a hundred. The older guy introduced himself as Todd. "Brunson?" I asked and they all laughed. The others were Dave and Sam, Todd's brother, and Richie whose buy-in was done out of pure bravado as I could see it left his wallet completely empty. It seemed to me they had the worse of the deal, with four hundred of their money against only eighty of ours but I guess for three of them at least it did not really matter much anyway, they just wanted to prove themselves against us.

They weren't bad, to be sure, but after an hour's play I had them pretty well figured out. By this time I was up to about a hundred and twenty, Richie was slightly below me �" being the one money mattered most to he had played the soundest game. The others played more aggressively. Dave had a huge pile of chips and both Sam and Todd had rebought for a second hundred. Em had thirty-five, having hardly played any hands.

Todd dealt and Richie and I called for a dollar. Todd raised to three. He often put in small raises and I guessed he had a decent ace or two high cards like king-queen. We both called and the flop came down ace-nine and a four with two hearts. Todd liked it and so did Richie, but he just checked knowing that he would face a big raise if he bet, and so did I. Todd bet five and we both called.

The next card was another heart, the eight. Richie had a flush, almost certainly the top flush with something like king-jack of hearts. He was considering whether to put all his chips in and take down the $24 pot but eventually decided to bet $12 and hope the board did not pair on the river. I just called and Todd unwisely came along but it was obvious by now he only had a pair of aces, probably he had started with ace-king or ace-queen.

The river was a second four, and this made Richie nervous. It was pretty unlikely I had made a full house but I had to be calling with something. I had shown down a couple of bluffs during the game but had not been particularly active. The pot by now was $80 so he bet twenty into it.

"I'm all-in" I declared, pushing my chips forward.

Todd would have called me as a bluff catcher but he had to worry about Richie's hand. After a few moments thought he folded.

Richie looked scared as he fingered his cards. He counted his chips, checking I had him covered, which he knew perfectly well already because I had seen him counting my stack when he hit the flush on the previous card. "I figure," he said. "You've shown two bluffs and won four genuine hands, and on top of that won seven hands when opponents folded. I reckon you're one in three for a bluff here. It costs me another $87 to win $254." He looked at me, desperate to get some information to improve his chances. "Are you beating a pair of aces?"

It was a common question, to which the answer "Of course I am beating a pair of aces" would give a huge amount of information to an observant opponent. So it was my turn to reverse the table talk.

"Richie," I said in a weary but authoritative voice, "you have made the classic mistake of poker. You put all your money on the table and now have to face a decision for the whole lot. I saw your wallet was empty after you bought in. I don't normally do this but I know how you'll have to drag yourself home and tell your mom you don't have anything left and admit to her you lost it in a game. So I'll tell you this once and once only. I have your sorry little flush beaten all the way back to whatever part of Brooklyn you come from. Don't play poker, you value your money far too much, just stick to bridge. You are much better at it."

The train was slowing as we approached the Hudson and everyone knew this would be the last hand. He looked at me, not knowing whether to trust me, and I could see caution prevailing in his mind. This was the time to pull the trigger. One little look and he would see me as a scheming lying coward and call for all his money. But I could not do it. I thought of the poor kid carrying his hurt head up the garden path. I thought of myself spending another eighty dollars of his money which in all reality I did not need nearly as much as him. I thought of Marco and Aleyev and his kid breaking tourists and recycling the money for what I could not even say in my own head. I looked at him gently and nodded and he meekly pushed his cards face down to the centre of the table.

I gathered up my chips and pushed the cards away but I could see the curious faces and decided I owed them one last favour. After all they had given me over a hundred dollars and I would never play any of them again. They probably wouldn't understand but Em would and if she though of the money we could always talk about it later. So I flipped the cards over proudly showing off my pair of fours to go with the other two on the table.