The Poker Report
7-30-03
"Honest Information You Can Bank On Since 2001"
Special Report - MacAdam/Cage vs. McSweeney's
The sky was a blanket of grey last night, the clouds so thick you couldn't even see the fog. There had been rain earlier, my girlfriend woke to thunder and flashing lights at 3a.m. "Why won't you let me sleep?" she said. "You're selfish." Later, in the cab to the train station, she would ask me why I was going to the train station with her. "You don't have to, you know." But it was the kind of joke she makes. We were already halfway there.
But she was gone, and I was mostly healed, and coming in her place were legions of McSweeney's employees: editors, proofreaders, fact checkers, web managers, and interns as well as Ben and Shady Andy and David Poindexter, the owner/publisher of MacAdam/Cage, and his trusty well-dressed sidekick, JP.
Because it was a special occasion, the two best publishers in San Francisco congregating in my apartment, I picked up a case of Budwieser at my local liquor store and on the way out a bum threw a beer can at me and hit me in the stomach and apologized. That's the kind of neighborhood I live in. I didn't bother to change my shirt.
Ben came over first, he'd been ripped off on the BART, and he was missing Wendy who he hadn't seen in more than half a day. I made him an avocado sandwich to calm his nerves. Then Andy showed up, fresh from winning eighteen dollars playing poker online and maybe slightly angry because the world has yet to give him his due. And he wanted to know when the suckers would be showing up and I said they would soon, and soon they did.
Most of McSweeney's crammed into my small studio. Noticeably absent were Barb and Yosh and Eggers who says he prefers to win when he plays. I had sent Yosh emails begging her to stop by but she ignored my entreaties. There were too many people to seat so Richard and his girl hung out on the couch drinking from forty ounce Miller bottles.
Early on, young Eli went all the way to fifth street two cards off an inside straight flush. "If I had gotten my card," he said. "I would have won all that money." Eli's only twenty-five, the editor for the most prestigious literary journal in the country. He's used to being treated like a king and making big decisions, the kind that effect lives. But he's spent all his life learning his trade, there was never room for anything else, so now, when he's out in the world, it's like he's starting from scratch.
Lee loves sixes and followed them in pairs around fourth street. Rose, who requested we play for M&Ms instead of money, sat next to Ben and Ben taught Rose the finer points of hold'em. "This is when you push and this is when you call," he said, pouring his heart out between hands, telling Rose how much he missed his girl.
There were a lot of hands won by aces high and curiosity was king. Low pairs were taking huge gains. There were ten seats, there were six calling stations. Poindexter kept a lot of money in the pot. When Andy raised you knew it was a bluff, when Matt called he just wanted to see what was there, and when Ben went in it was time to go out. And it was ten at night when Lee, Gideon, Matt, Eli, Richard + 1, and Rose gathered themselves and their literary journal and huddled out into the Mission night to scavenge for food.
"To think," I said. "We've been playing this house game for two and a half years and I haven't even gotten any furniture. Think of all the people that have come and gone and how we haven't gone anywhere at all."
"Let's raise the stakes,"Andy said. So we did. One dollar two dollar, fifty cents small blind.
"Here we are playing small money, and the pentagon is taking wagers for terrorists, pulling a five percent rake on who gets bombed next. It's a strange world. The governor's being recalled, I got even money on Gray Davis or better."
At this point Andy asked if he could smoke inside and I said no, because we live in California. Andy said he would give me three dollars and I agreed to let everybody smoke inside my apartment for a dollar a cigarette.
Ben left, eleven dollars up, mostly Dave's money, and we kept going. "You're not going to smell it in the morning," Andy said when I complained about the smoke. He kept pushing me blue chips, a lit butt balanced precariously on his lower lip.
"You're not paying me enough for me not to complain."
I'd had a tremendous night, fifty dollars to the good and to my God. Dave was winning big and Andy was saying to Dave, "I know you have more money than me, man, but you have to play the game. You have to play the game like it means something to you. Even if it doesn't." Dave was sweeping Andy's chips like an enormous dustbuster, as if each of Andy's chips had a metal plate inside and Dave had magnets on his fingers.
"I know," Dave kept saying, lining Andy's chips in stacks and rows, then shuffling them together in rainbow piles. "You're right. I've got to play like I mean it."
The wind was blowing hard through the open windows and ash was swirling through the studio, beer cans rollling across the floor. "Andy," I said, "You're the shadiest guy I know."
He tried to backpedal. "I mean, bluff if you have to, I understand that. I'm not trying to tell you how you have to play. But make an effort." Andy was on tilt. You read about it the manuals but you never expect to see it in your house. It was like watching a friend overdose, except it wasn't like that at all, it was only money Andy was losing.
It came down to five dollar ten dollar. "Come on man." Andy's eyes were yellow and bloodshot. "Let's go big." Dave just smirked. Dave has gone big all his life. JP and I sat out and Dave and Andy went at it. Dave took the first two hands but Andy couldn't fold. On the third hand Andy won thirty-five dollars but not before losing it, screaming at the room about the new math, the unfairness of it all, and I had to call the game. I had to say it was over, Andy was ready to cross the edge.
JP and I gathered all the empties. "I just like it," Andy said to Dave at the door. It all reminded me somehow of George Orwell, Keep The Aspidistra Flying, but I'm not sure why.
"When are you going to make some money and move somewhere I don't have to worry about my car?" Dave asked, his pockets stuffed with Andy's billfold. Of course, it was his advances I was living on, that was the funny part of it. But Dave's company alone is worth a small fortune, if looked at from a certain angle.
"I belong here," I told them, the smoke alarm going off in the crack hotel next door. It was both sad and true. I'd fold the table up, move the couch, lay the mattress down before going to sleep. I gave JP three bags of recycling to take with him to the curb. Dave, Andy, and JP left for home. (1)
Stephen Elliott
Editor
The Poker Report
**
Order McSweeney's XI. I have three stories in this issue and it comes with a DVD - http://store.mcsweeneys.net/
Order The Believer, another McSweeney's publication. I have a 10,000 word article in the September issue on the Howard Dean Campaign. - http://store.mcsweeneys.net/
Pre-Order Politically Inspired, a fiction anthology I edited coming from MacAdam/Cage in October. If you pre-order you will get it before anybody else - https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=stephen.elliott%40stanford.edu&item_name=Politically+Inspired&amount=23.00&no_note=1¤cy_code=USD
Coming next week: Guest Editor Todd Pierce, author of The Australia Stories - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1931561281 /qid%3D1049821761/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/104-0748670-7936706
Peruse the archives - http://www.stephenelliott.com/pokerreport.html
subscribe: poker@stephenelliott.com
unsubscribe: no-poker@stephenelliott.com
1. The next day Dave wrote to tell me he lost money and Andy said he won $40. I don't believe either of them and stand by the facts as they have been reported.