Me and Daniel Negreanu are playing poker together. Before we start he tells me that the secret to winning at poker is to stay calm. That can’t be, I say. Poker is a game of chance. So we play 500 hands. I lose every single one. He tells me again, the secret to winning at poker is to stay calm. By the 501st game, I can’t bring myself to care. I push all in without even looking at my cards. Daniel folds. I’m telling you, he says, the secret to winning poker is staying calm. But you folded in the first round, I say, you saw that I was calm and let me win. I had bad cards, he says, but before I can look at them they’re lost to a bridge shuffle.
We play 500 more hands. This time I cheat. I deal myself a royal flush every time. I’m confident. I’m calm. I win every hand. On the 1001st hand, I deal myself a royal flush, and Daniel wins. See! He cheers. The secret to winning at poker is staying calm. But I was cheating, I protest, and you seemed the same on the 763rd hand as you did in the 149th. If staying calm was really the secret, then shouldn’t you still have been winning? I wasn’t calm he tells me. I was thinking about what you said and I was worried that I staked my career on a lie. But, I was cheating, I tell him again. I know, he says. I figured it out in the 1000th round. And then I was calm because I knew you were—the secret to winning at poker is to stay calm. The cards can feel you, he says.
We keep playing. We gamble our socks and watches, two of my shoelaces for his car keys, but not the car, he clarifies. It’s a zero-sum game. Eventually, both of us, tired and fingers worked smooth from all the shuffling, reach the end of the world. Our hands and the community cards are the same as the first game we played. We tie on an Ace-high.
This post was inspired (stolen) by the short story called Playing Magnus Carlson in an Empty Room by the Youtuber Little Joel. Shout out to him.