All In

by Jerry Yang

  I looked around until I found two large rocks. After laying the bike sideways, I hammered away at the wheel. Once I’d made it as straight as I could, I snuck the bicycle back to my cousin’s apartment and placed it where I’d found it; then I slipped away and hoped no one would notice.

  I got caught, of course, but my uncle was very kind, and I didn’t get into trouble. Perhaps my uncle had once been a little Tom Sawyer himself.

  We may have moved from Nashville to Kansas City, but the Tom Sawyer in me was just as strong as ever. Here I was at the beginning of my freshman year of high school, still trying to squeeze all the fun out of life without ever taking it seriously, and my father was pleading with me, tears in his eyes, to meet such a small goal: to finish high school.

  Oh, Father, I am capable of so much more, I thought. And before I’m finished, I will prove that to you.

  My inner Tom Sawyer died that day, put to death by me. I had no choice. My father saw great potential in me. All he really wanted was for me to have a better life than the one he, an immigrant who couldn’t speak English, could give us.

  I knew how hard he worked. Every night when he came home, I removed his shoes to show my gratitude for all he’d done for me. “Yes, Father,” I said. “I will not let you down. I will finish high school. You’ll see.”

  After my sophomore year, our family moved once again. By this point I had a new sister, Shirley, the first American citizen in my family. Not long after we’d moved to California, my mother had also given birth to another son, Reagan, named after President Ronald Reagan. My parents wanted to move our whole family away from the violence of the projects, and more than that my father wanted to farm again.

  I had visions of the slash-and-burn farming we’d done in Laos, performing every task by hand. When we ended up moving near Fresno, though, I quickly discovered that farming in the California’s Central Valley is very different.

  My father rented a piece of ground, where he grew cherry tomatoes. My brothers and I worked the farm with my father in the afternoons after school and all through the summer. Even though we didn’t have to chop trees by hand and clear a spot on a side of a mountain, as we had in Laos, raising cherry tomatoes was labor intensive. Once they were on the vine, we had to pick them every day.

  Did I mention how hot it is in Fresno in the summertime? The temperature climbs into triple digits almost as soon as the sun comes up over the mountains. I thought I might dry up and blow away picking those tomatoes.

  When my father later rented his own farm, we also grew green beans, cucumbers, jalapeño peppers, and strawberries. I learned that if you can get water to the plant, anything will grow in California’s Central Valley.

  I took my promise to my father seriously.

  During my freshman year of high school in Kansas City, I had brought home only one B on my report card; the rest were A’s.

  My sophomore year, I went to Hoover High School in Fresno, where I excelled in everything except English. I tested out of math classes all the way up to trigonometry. The math teacher, Haig Shekerjian, even let me grade papers for his algebra classes. Soon I worked as a tutor with his struggling students. Not only was I excelling in school, but I actually began to enjoy it.

  At the end of my sophomore year, I brought home a perfect 4.0 grade point average.

  My father noticed. He encouraged me, pushing me to work even harder.

  He also worked harder on the farm to try to save money to put toward college for me. No one can save money like my father can. Even though he worked mainly minimum wage jobs, he’d saved enough to pay cash for a car of his own. Now he had a bigger goal in mind, both for himself and for me.

  My father now knew that merely finishing high school was not nearly a lofty enough goal for his second son.

  In school, I ran into one problem: my name. No one could pronounce it. When the teachers called roll the first day, they’d come to my name near the end of the list and not know what to say. Sometimes teachers pronounced my first name as “Cho” or “Zo” or “Zou.” Even after I corrected them, it took weeks for them to get it right.

  My brother had the same problem, so we both decided we needed American names.

  For Xay, the choice was easy. He loved Jackie Chan movies even more than I did. The moment he decided to Americanize his name, he became Jackie. (Later, when he would become an American citizen in 1999, he would once again change his name, this time to Jonah. I guess he outgrew his inner Jackie Chan just as I outgrew my inner Tom Sawyer.)

  For me, the choice was not so easy.

  I wanted to pick a good, strong name. I thought about the name Charlie, but I didn’t want to be called Chuck. I also considered the name Michael, like the archangel, but it didn’t seem to fit me. I really liked the name John and almost settled on it, till one day while reading the Bible, I found myself staring at the fourth book of the New Testament, John, and thought, I could never live up to a name like this.

  I also pondered the name Tom. I liked it because I liked Thomas Jefferson. How much more American could you get than that? But I was hesitant to pick it, too, because I of the whole Hmong Tom Sawyer thing.

  Tom didn’t feel right any more than Charlie or Michael or John did.

  All of a sudden, it hit me. I knew the perfect name.

  When I first came to America and couldn’t speak English, I still liked to watch television, especially cartoons. I didn’t need to understand English to enjoy my favorite cartoon, Tom and Jerry. I especially liked Jerry the mouse; he reminded me of me. He was so small that everyone always underestimated him. And, like me, he had to scramble for food just to survive. But no matter what challenges he faced, he always came out on top. That big old cat Tom did everything he could to catch him, but nothing worked. Jerry was too smart for him.

  That’s me, I thought. Struggle, struggle, struggle. But in the end, Jerry always wins by the sheer force of his determination. I want to be a winner. My name is Jerry.

  I thought no one could possibly come up with a way to make fun of my new name. I was wrong.

  One wise guy at my high school called me “Jerry Coke,” like Cherry Coke.

  I let it get under my skin until an idea hit me.

  The next time I saw him, he said, “How’s it going, Jerry Coke?”

  “Just great, Johnny Pepsi.”

  He laughed.

  We would call each other by these names through high school.

  I’d begun attending a Bible study at an Asian Seventh-Day Adventist church after we’d moved to Fresno. Some weeks I also attended church there on Saturdays, in addition to attending church with my family on Sundays. The church sponsored a Christian high school.

  After my sophomore year at Hoover, the pastor, Chris Ishii, said, “Jerry, how would you like to go to our Adventist Academy?”

  I liked the idea of spending my day in a Christian environment. The school was also much smaller than Hoover High. Like everything else in my life, though, one big obstacle stood in my way: money. My parents couldn’t afford to send me to a private school.

  “I will pray about it,” I told Pastor Ishii.

  I did pray, but it seemed impossible. At the public school, I qualified for the low-income lunch program and could ride the bus. With a private school, in addition to the $460 monthly tuition, I had to pay for my own books, field trips, lunch, and transportation.

  I called Pastor Ishii. “As much as I would like to go to your school, I simply don’t have the money.”

  “Jerry, if you really want to come, we can find a way. Let’s pray about it.” Then he said, “Would you be willing to work to help pay your way?”

  “Of course.” I have never been afraid of hard work.

  Pastor Ishii also asked about my grades. When I told him I was a 4.0 student, he said he would get back with me soon.

  Two weeks later, he called. “A lady in our church, Mrs. Einhart, owns a nursing home in downtown Fresno and has agreed to help you pay your tuition. However, you
’ll have to pay for your own books and transportation.”

  I was overwhelmed. How I would pay for everything else, I didn’t know, but I figured I could find a way.

  That’s when Pastor Ishii surprised me with another bit of news: Mrs. Einhart had offered me a job on the janitorial staff at her nursing home.

  Two days later, I finally got to meet the woman who had offered to do something so nice for me.

  Mrs. Einhart sat me down. “Jerry, I will do this for you but only on one condition.”

  “Yes, ma’am?” I had no idea what she’d say next.

  “I will help pay your tuition if you give me your word that someday, when you are able, you will show the same kindness to others that I have shown to you.”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am. I would be honored to do that. I give you my word. I will.”

  With tuition and book money covered, I only needed transportation.

  I talked to my family, and my uncle made me an offer. This was the same uncle who had picked us up at the airport in Nashville. He now lived in Fresno with his family as well.

  “Xao, I want you to use my car. You’ll have to pay for the insurance and gas, but that’s it. It’s yours for as long as you need it. Once you’re through with it, just give it back.”

  With that, he handed me the keys to the little brown Datsun station wagon, the very one he’d used to pick us up from the airport when we’d arrived in America five years before.

  What more could a young man have asked for?

  The next two years, I got up every morning at two o’clock. I worked from three until half past seven sweeping and mopping and vacuuming at Mrs. Einhart’s nursing home. After work, I quickly showered, dressed, and drove to school. In the afternoon, I studied and studied. I went to bed by nine o’clock and started the whole thing again early the next morning.

  Occasionally I helped out at my father’s farm, but he didn’t want me there during the school year.

  “Go study, Xao. Concentrate on your schoolwork. That’s more important than this.”

  Needless to say, I didn’t have much of a social life my last two years of high school. In the end, it was worth it. Not only did I graduate, but I finished at the top of my class.

  The day I went to tell my father I was named valedictorian, I could hardly get the words out. “Father, when we came to America, I didn’t know a word of English. I struggled early on. But you taught me to work hard, and I have. I did anything and everything I could to become a better student, and it paid off. Father, I will graduate number one in my class, the top student, the valedictorian.” My tears poured down.

  My father couldn’t help himself and cried as well. He wrapped his arms around me and said, “Son, you have done very well. I am proud of you.”

  That, more than anything, was my ultimate goal.

  After high school, I would go on to Pacific Union College on a full scholarship. The day I told my father I was planning to major in biology and go on to medical school, he nearly burst with pride. When I graduated from high school, he slaughtered a pig and held a giant celebration. The day I graduated from college, he slaughtered a bull and threw an even bigger party.

  I was accepted to eight different medical schools, finally deciding on Loma Linda in Southern California. After working so hard through both high school and college, though, I was more than a little burned out.

  I deferred medical school one year and took master’s level classes at Loma Linda in health psychology. The only reason I’d wanted to be a doctor was to help people in places like the ones where I’d grown up. I discovered I could do the same thing through health psychology.

  Breaking this news to my father was one of the hardest things I ever did. The man who had at one time asked only that I finish high school looked at me as if I’d let him down. Even so, the day I received my master’s degree, he threw the biggest party yet. Even General Vang Pao came and celebrated with us.

  I stayed in school beyond my master’s and worked toward my PhD. This time, money didn’t get in the way. Something far more important did.

  During a Hmong New Year celebration, I met the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. We soon married and started a family of our own. I dropped out of graduate school, though I needed only to write my dissertation to finish my doctorate.

  My father says to me to this day, “Jerry, all I ask of you is that you finish your doctorate, and I will be happy.”

  I laugh every time he says it. But never in front of him.

  Sue and I settled into a normal American life, complete with car payments and a mortgage. I went to work at a foster care agency working with at-risk children. Other jobs might have paid more, but this one gave me the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of children.

  I might have stayed in that job until I retired if Sue and I hadn’t sat on the couch one Saturday night to watch a little television. My story would have had no less of a happy ending. Our life was good. Very good.

  And it was about to change forever.

  24

  It All Comes Down to This

  The carnival atmosphere that marked the beginning of the heads up showdown between Tuan Lam and me didn’t last long. People get tired, even in Las Vegas. Most of the observers in the grandstands around the feature table had been there since play had begun fourteen hours earlier.

  I was exhausted. At this point, adrenaline alone kept my body running. With my huge chip lead, I thought I could end this quickly. Final head-to-head matches at the main event rarely last longer than ten hands. None of the last three had lasted longer than seven.

  Then again, none of those final tables had featured Tuan Lam. His style of play defined patience.

  Norman Chad, ESPN’s color commentator during its broadcasts of the World Series of Poker, said that Tuan Lam had folded his way to the final table. That is not too far from the truth.

  I don’t mean this as a criticism of Tuan’s strategy. Far from it. Any strategy that takes you to the final head-to-head showdown in a tournament that began with over 6,000 players is a good one.

  In fact, Tuan had been an aggressive player through much of the tournament. Going into the final table, he took a different approach. I knew he could be a tight player, but I didn’t realize how tight.

  Of the seven players who’d been sent home thus far, I’d knocked out six. Tuan, not a single one. He’d taken to heart John Kalmar’s idea many hours earlier that he could sit back and let me take everyone’s chips, then face me head-to-head. John had busted out a long time ago, but Tuan was still very much in contention for poker’s biggest prize.

  I had a four-to-one chip lead, yet both of us were well aware that Philip Hilm had held a three-to-one chip lead on me at one time before becoming the first player to bust out.

  The first dozen hands between Tuan Lam and me primarily consisted of one or the other of us folding before the flop. Only three hands went all the way to the river, including the very first. Even on those that progressed past the flop, the pots remained small. I could not lure Tuan into risking any of his chips beyond the bare minimum.

  My legs and shoulders ached. Not only had we been playing for over fourteen straight hours, but we’d played over sixteen hours on day six and fourteen hours on day five.9 On top of the physical strain, each of those days had been filled with emotional leaps and letdowns. I planned to sleep for about a week once this was finally over.

  When the cards were dealt on the fourteenth hand of our head-to-head showdown, I thought, This is it. This will end it. I was the first to act, which is advantageous for an aggressive player, especially with a hand. And I had a hand. “Two point six million.” I was already in the pot for $600,000.

  He called.

  The flop came: king, queen, six.

  We both checked.

  The turn card came: five of clubs.

  Tuan bet 3 million.

  “I’m all in,” I said in response. Those words woke up the crowd. Come on, call, I said in my mi
nd over and over. Just call, and let’s end this. Now!

  Forty-five long seconds passed.

  Finally, without saying a word, Tuan slid his cards toward the dealer, giving up the hand.

  We had to keep playing.

  The next eight hands consisted of more limping into the pot and folds. I took seventeen of the first twenty-one hands and in the process cut Tuan’s chip stack in half. Yet I couldn’t deliver the knockout punch. The few times he made a large raise or went all in, I didn’t have the cards to call. The last thing I wanted to do was double him up.

  Tuan made his first big mistake on hand 23, which was hand 192 of the final table. He was the first to act and pushed all in.

  You must keep in mind that Tuan had played tight all night. However, when a player finds himself on the short stack, he will often push all in from the button as a way of stealing the blinds and antes, thus buying a little more time. I suspected that was exactly what Tuan was trying to do.

  I held an ace-ten, so I called.

  As soon as I did, I knew I had him. He pulled off his glasses and pursed his lips, which was a sure sign he was bluffing. I flipped over my cards, and his expression seemed to say, Uh-oh.

  The moment he turned his cards, I knew why. He’d gone all in with a puny three-four off suit, one of the top ten worst hands in Texas Hold ’Em.

  I pumped my fist in excitement while the crowd behind me went nuts.

  Then came the flop. King. Eight. Four.

  My heart sank. The Canadians in the crowd woke up and cheered like crazy, waving flags and chanting. Honestly, not much had happened the past hour. Everyone in the stands had been waiting for a reason to bust loose.

  The hand was far from over, but I knew it didn’t look good for me. I had to hit an ace or a ten to take both the pot and the tournament.

  The turn card was a six, the river a king.

  Not only did I double his chip stack, but I gave him a shot of confidence and made him believe he wasn’t dead yet.

  Tuan proceeded to take four of the next five hands. The pots were tiny in comparison to the number of chips in play, but that didn’t matter. He came to the final table determined to wait me out, no matter how long it took. His strategy had always been to bide his time, play strong hands, and pray for lucky breaks. He caught one when I doubled him up. A couple more, and he might well win the whole thing.