Thursday, September 27, 2007

Chapter 4

Tricia started the day feeling guilty since breakfast turned out to be a cinnamon bun in the hotel coffee shop. As she at it, savoring every bite and wondering when and where she would take a walk to try to keep it from going to her hips, she looked around the hotel lobby. Idly she fantasized about seeing Jaime walk by. She knew she would still recognize him because his journal had a current picture and he didn’t really look much different. She got to wondering if she did. Eight years and a child later she HAD changed in more ways than one but didn’t think she looked all that much different. Maybe a few pounds heavier and the cinnamon bun wasn’t helping that she thought with a smile.

Breakfast was over too quick but she resisted the temptation to go back for seconds even though a new batch coming out of the oven tempted her sorely. She left the hotel and wandered into the Casino. Looking at her watch she saw she had the better part of an hour to kill before the time the signs said the satellites started. Tricia had always enjoyed the sights and sounds of a casino and while it wasn’t busy at that hour of a weekday morning there were enough flashing lights and beeping slot machines to get the feel of it.

After a slow trek through the whole casino and after having dropped $20 in a slot machine she made her way to the tournament room. She was amazed to find it fairly busy already. Some of the games looked like they had been going on all night. Looking around she found a rack holding literature about the various tournaments coming up. She found one about the satellites that would run today and picked the sheet up and began to read it.

“These structures suck!” She heard a voice say beside her. She looked over and saw a tall thin guy with a gray beard and gray hair wearing a Harley shirt. Her first thought was that she’d seen her first biker scare crow.

He saw her looking over and elaborated on his comment. “Look at this! They start you with almost no chips, the blinds are big and they go up fast. There is no skill is that. How can there be any skill in that!Can you believe this?”

“Well,” Tricia said finding herself a bit surprised at what she also thought was an unfavorable structure to the satellites. “I admit that they don’t leave much time to play.”

“Hell no they don’t! They will be all in fests. They always are! Shit!” the guy said.

Tricia’s eyebrows went up. Here was somebody who sounded like he’d done this before.

“They are always like this?”

“Hell yeah,” the guy said, disgusted. “I don’t even know why I looked.” Then he grinned at her. “I guess I keep hoping that if I check often enough things will change. Stupid huh?”

“Optimistic,” Tricia said. “This is my first time at one of these things.”

“First tournament at all?” The guy asked. “You’ve seen it on TV and thought you’d give it a shot?”

Tricia giggled. “No. I have played a fair amount online but lower buy ins. And I have done tournaments on trips to a casino closer to home up in Canada.”

“Oh. How’d you do?”

“Lets just say,” Tricia said, suddenly wary of giving out exact results for some reason, “That I’m here with my winnings to see how I can do. Plus I was playing a $4/$8 game last night and have $250 from that to use for satellites today.”

“God I hate limit hold’em,” the guy said, not endearing himself to her at the moment. Then he got himself out of the hole a bit by saying, “But hell if you made $250 in a night in a game that size what the hell. You had almost no risk compared to the no limit games I played and like you said you have seed money for satellites.”

“Are you going to play any of them?”

“I always do,” The guy said. “I always bitch but I always play them. They really are luck fests but hey somebody has to win. I already bought into the first two events though so that shows you how much faith I have that I’ll win one of the satellites.”

“I was trying to decide if I should buy into the first event now,” Tricia told him. “Do they sell out?” She hated being so ignorant but asking this guy wasn’t hard. He didn’t seem to be treating her like she was afraid more experienced players would treat her. She’d been pleasantly surprised to find that people seemed to just accept her.

“Well the first couple are the lowest buy-ins so they will probably fill up but Event one is not until tomorrow at noon and you could probably get in tomorrow morning if you get in line when registration starts at nine. Might as well try a couple of the satellites, they are relatively cheap.”

“I thought you said they sucked?” Tricia asked. “I wasn’t sure it was worth it.”

The guy shrugged. “Don’t believe everything anybody tells you. Give one of them a try and see what you think. Like I said somebody has to win and even though I hate them I give a couple a shot anyway.”

“Oh,” Tricia said. “I guess I will then. You’re sure I don’t need to just buy in to the first event now to get in?

“I’m sure,” The guy said. “I wouldn’t wait until tomorrow morning but then I hate lines.”

“Well thanks,” Tricia said.

“Sure thing and good luck,” the guy said walking away then before Tricia could introduce herself and get his name.

All in all the exchange made her feel much more comfortable. She found herself starting to feel like she belonged. When she heard the PA speaker calling for players for the first satellite she went over toward where it said to.

There was a line but not a terribly long one. When she got up to the front the lady at the podium looked at her expectantly.

“I guess I want to play a satellite,” Tricia said. Then thinking that sounded stupid quickly said with a giggle. “I do want to play one. This is my first time at an event like this.”

“No problem,” The lady said quoting the entry fee. “they are winner take all single table satellites right now. Ten players and the winner gets a $500 tournament entry chip that you can use in any $500 or larger buy in event here. They cannot be cashed in, they must be used for a buy in.”

“Ok,” Tricia said, feeling a tad lost but basically understanding what was going on, at least she thought she did.

She paid her money and made her way to the table she was assigned to. Over the course of the next couple of minutes the table filled up and once all ten players were there play started.

It was indeed a wild tournament as the guy with the Harley shirt had said. The very first hand had three people put all their chips into the pot and had two of them eliminated. Tricia was shocked at the weak hands that the losers tried it with. She reminded herself that was why they were losers and vowed to try to wait for a good hand.

Before long she found a hand she liked and being first to act, raised as she’d learned to. Another player immediately bet enough to put Tricia all in and she felt a trickle of sweat as she realized she was about to play for all her chips and that if she lost she would be out. She just couldn’t see how she could fold the hand at that point. She called and as the board was dealt out was virtually holding her breath, afraid to look at her opponent or anything other than the cards on the board.

It sunk in that she had won and would survive when the dealer pushed the pot toward her. She did look up then and her opponent, grinning sheepishly because his hand had been pretty weak said, “good hand. I had to take a shot. I thought I could get you to fold.”

Tricia smiled and just said thank you.

In what she thought was a shockingly short time there were only three players left. She picked up another hand she had to raise and the chip leader re-raised enough to set her all in.

Tricia felt the familiar, rock in the pit of the stomach, feeling that she always did online when she knew she could be knocked out. She hated the thought that she could go out third but knew that she couldn’t win without playing so she called his re-raise.

She had the best hand when they turned them over but he got lucky and she sat there sort of stunned realizing that she had just been eliminated.

Immediately the other guy left asked the chip leader if he wanted to chop. Tricia looked at them curiously.

“I’ll take the chip,” The guy who’d beat her said. “I’ve got a pretty good lead. How about $200?”

The other guy shrugged. “Ok.”

The dealer slid what looked like an oversized pink poker chip to the one guy who then slid two hundred dollar bills to the other guy. Then they left the table with Tricia still sitting there.

The dealer looked over at her, no doubt curious why she was still sitting there.

“That was the first time I’ve played one of these. The only other tournaments I’ve played live have had lots of people in them and took hours.”

The dealer chuckled. “These are generally quick.”

“It’s ok to split like that?”

“Yeah,” The dealer confirmed. “I don’t see why the guy went for the deal though he had enough chips to win outright. Usually people deal if it’s close.”

“I didn’t know you could do it at all,” Tricia said. “I thought the tournament entry chips could not be cashed in.”

“Well you can’t take them to the cashier cage but you can sell them to anybody you want for whatever you want. You will see people later in the week selling them for deep discounts.”

“Really?” Tricia said. “Why would you sell them like that? Why not just enter the one of the tournaments with them?”

“There are people who all they do is play satellites to win chips so they call sell them. They make a lot of money even selling the chips for less than full value. It’s kind of a win/win situation for everyone.”

“I have a lot to learn,” Tricia said. “Thanks for the info.”

“You’re welcome,” the dealer said. “Good luck. You had a good chance in this one. You’ll win one soon.”

Tricia got up as they started to set the table up for the next satellite but the dealer’s comments had her feeling good about her play. She went back to the podium and found no line this time. She immediately entered another satellite and went to her table.

Less than an hour later she was standing to the side of the tournament area fingering the entry chip in her jeans pocket and wondering if she had a big stupid smile on her face. She could not believe she had won! Of course when there are only four players and you have not only pocket aces which is the best starting hand possible but more chips than they have and they ALL go all in in front of you then calling is a no-brainer. Her aces held up and she was the sole winner of the $500 entry chip.

She had tried to call Matt but got his voice mail. She left a message but was disappointed not to get to tell him in person.

She thought about going to play another satellite but then decided not to push her luck. She’d spent less than half her winnings from the night before so she could use this win to buy into tomorrow’s event and then use the rest of her winnings from the night before for more satellites.

She found the registration area and proudly traded her entry chip for an entry in the next day’s tournament. The woman who registered her told her they expected a full field of over 800 players. That boggled Tricia’s mind a bit since the most that had been in any of the tournaments she’d been in had been around 100.

Standing outside the registration area Tricia asked herself now what? Her eye went to the sign up board for cash games and before she knew it she was sitting in a $4/$8 game again.

She looked around, smiling and happy. Then for the first time since breakfast she wondered if Jaime was here. Would he have been proud of her for winning that satellite? She smiled, betting he would have been and would have told her.

She found herself wishing he would be here and would come up to her. Then she shook herself mentally and told herself not to be stupid. She didn’t need that complication in her life. It had messed things up before and now she had Matty to think about as well.

Thoughts of Jaime faded out for the time being as she continued to play and realizing she was hungry ordered lunch when a waitress stopped by the table asking if anybody wanted anything.

As Tricia waited for her food she felt a jolt as she got a glimpse out of the corner of her eye of somebody who seemed to look like Jaime. She felt her heart race and her stomach grow heavy. She couldn’t see where he had gone to and although she stood up and looked around she couldn’t see anybody would might have been him now.

Her food and her drink came and she signed the food comp and tipped the waitress. She ate nervously while she played, paying more attention to what was going on around her than the game in front of her. Wondering if it had been HIM…could it have been?

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