They were in the ballroom of the South Bank Hilton. If the lights hadn’t been quite so dazzling she might have been able to see across the river to the green and red canopies of the outdoor terraces of the Houses of Commons and Lords.
‘One day,’ Kenneally was saying, ‘poker will be recognised as a sport, which will eventually be invited to participate in the Olympics. Think of that, gentlemen!’
There was some applause but not that much, probably because no one believed this and maybe because everyone was getting as bored as she was.
‘Without any more ado, let’s introduce the players!’
He passed the microphone to Tambini, who went onto her hate list too as he initiated some comedy squabbling over whose idea this all was, before thanking Kenneally for his inspirational leadership, and coaxing the room into another round of applause.
There had been a gala event the night before when all this, she felt, could have been got out of the way.
Finally, the introductions were being made.
‘And here they are! Mike Bridges is thirty-eight years old and has won eleven WSOP bracelets but we all know him as the most feared high-stakes player in Las Vegas and Macau for over a decade. Let’s hear it for Mike Bridges, ladies and gentlemen, from Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA! Mike Bridges!
‘And Rainer Gottschalk, he’s twenty-one, an internet sensation. Rainer won his first WSOP bracelet this year, when he was finally old enough to be allowed inside an American casino. Rainer Gottschalk, from Weimar in Germany!’
She wondered if she would be introduced (A-aa-aand let’s big it up for your dealer, without whom none of this would be possible, ladies and gentlemen, Ms Wendy Valerian!), but she knew she would not be, and instead Tambini was now introducing Xi Tianxi, who had flown out from their watch manufacturer partners in Geneva. Finally, Wendy was able to move away from the table, to shut her eyes, to stretch and relax the muscles of her face, to slowly lift and roll and lower her shoulders, as the players were presented with new watches.
Mike Bridges, wearing beige chinos and a New York Mets sweatshirt, stood beside Rainer Gottschalk in jeans and a heavy metal T-shirt. On either side were Tambini in his white dinner jacket and Xi in a black evening dress. Xi slid the watches onto the wrists of Bridges and Gottschalk. Bridges, who did everything, apart from poker and baccarat, somewhat languorously, glanced down at his watch in a slow, unimpressed appraisal. Gottschalk giggled, as if the touch of a woman’s hand upon his arm was a novelty, and then showed it to his retinue of supporters, who looked just like him, with long greasy dark hair, heavy metal T-shirts, and jeans and trainers. One, whom she assumed was his father, was distinct by his grey straggly hair.
Kenneally tapped his own watch and nodded at Wendy to sit back down. He took the microphone again.
‘Thank you, Xi, thank you, Lucio. Thank you, players! The game is Texas Hold’em, heads up. This is a winner-take-all hundred thousand pound event. Players will start with ten thousand chips, and blinds will be at 25-50, where they will remain. Poker is a game of skill, and this is a demonstration of that fact. Pressure of blinds and antes will not be a factor influencing the outcome. The action will be broadcast and streamed on a fifteen-minute delay, so that there is no possibility of either player being informed of the other’s hole cards. Let’s shuffle up and deal!’
Finally now, she pitched the first cards, and there was a physical relief to be doing so.
Bridges was leaning twisted against his chair, one arm over the seat back. He lifted the corners of his cards very slightly, glanced down at them. Otherwise he gazed at his opponent with his mouth slightly open.
Gottschalk was sitting squarely at the table. His arms surrounded his chips. His hair fell in front of his eyes.
The action was on Bridges. He threw in two chips, making it 125 to play.
Gottschalk re-raised immediately. There was a jerky quality to his actions as he put in the chips, as if the messages from brain to limbs passed through more complicated channels than was usual.
Bridges’s mouth closed, then opened again as if he wanted, mildly, to warn his opponent against this heedless aggression. Instead, he shook his head very slowly and solemnly, and four-bet, making it 1,100 to play.
There were excited murmurs from the crowd. Some people clapped.
Kenneally had told her he anticipated play lasting much of the day, at least until after the lunch break. But the players’ aggression was making it seem that it might all be over on the first hand.
Gottschalk giggled and called.
She dealt the flop: ace of hearts, queen of clubs, two of clubs.
Gottschalk led out. Bridges, staring at him throughout, slowly tossed in the call.
Alerted by the action, Tambini had come towards the table. He rested a hand on Wendy’s shoulder.
The turn card was the king of hearts.
‘He checks now,’ Lucio whispered.
Gottschalk bet. Bridges called again. Each player had just over half their starting stack left.
Wendy waited an extra beat, tapped the table, burned the next card, and exposed the river card, jack of diamonds.
Kenneally seemed oblivious to it all, off to the side, talking to Xi Tianxi.
Gottschalk bet, Bridges raised. Tambini’s hand became heavier on her shoulder.
And Gottschalk folded. He slid his cards over towards Wendy. He looked at his opponent’s chips – Bridges now had over four times as many.
Tambini released his pressure. He was wearing one of those watches too. It had a gold bracelet and a gold face with no numbers or markings. Wendy wondered how many Xi had brought over from Geneva.
Gottschalk folded the next hand, and the next, to Bridges’s raise. He won the one after that, taking the blinds with a raise, and the next, re-raising Bridges’s button raise.
An hour had gone by, and Gottschalk had won a few chips back, but Bridges still held a significant lead.
Spectators drifted in and out. The urgency created by the first hand diminished, the precipice that had been waiting for Gottschalk receded. Finally the first break came. Wendy went out of the ballroom, which had once been the chamber for the Greater London Council, and into the green room to find coffee. Some of Gottschalk’s crew were here, the straggly-haired heavy metal fans. Most of them were playing internet poker on laptops and tablets.
She drank her coffee looking up at the monitors. There were two, one showing the live feed, and the other, on a delay, which showed the hole cards in a lower corner of the screen. Bridges was unchanging in both, his lower jaw slightly open, staring at his opponent. Gottschalk sometimes had his arms around his cards, sometimes he slumped in his seat, like a boy waiting for permission to leave the supper table. Bridges did everything methodically, but he made quick decisions. And Gottschalk’s mind moved so much faster than the rest of him. That’s what accounted for all that nervous energy, Wendy thought. It was the effort of the body to keep up with his thoughts that sent everything fizzing and skipping. His hands were by far his best feature; on another man they would have looked capable and refined. On him they were rather incongruous, and flapped. She wondered what it would be like to have sex with Gottschalk. Presumably a quick paroxysmal frenzy and then over.
Kenneally was fielding congratulations from other balding men in grey suits.
‘I know, I know! I thought it was all going to be over in a single hand!’
He drew the back of his hand across his forehead to mime the wiping away of sweat. Kenneally’s fingers were short and plump and very pale, like a family of overfed worms.
Gottschalk was pointing at the screen of one of his friends, advising him how to play the online hand.
Bridges was sitting by himself looking at his phone. He glanced up at Wendy, perhaps because he had felt her scrutiny upon him, and smiled. Mike Bridges’s smile was open and uncomplicatedly boyish and at odds with his slack-jawed persona. She wondered how much of that was performance.
The monitor was repla
ying the first hand. Gottschalk had ace-jack, Bridges queen-ten. Gottschalk had been ahead all the way to the river, which had given him two pairs and filled Bridges’s unlikely straight.
‘Amazing laydown, can’t believe he got away from that,’ Tambini said. He seemed to have a skill for gliding silently in behind her.
‘They’re very evenly matched, aren’t they?’ Wendy said. ‘Who do you think’s going to win?’
‘Bridges. It’s what he does. The kid’s great, but he’s going to overreach himself eventually,’ Tambini said.
When play resumed, Gottschalk adopted the opposite of his usual style. His customary game was hyper-aggressive, three-betting often, regardless of his cards, to put pressure on his opponent. But now, he was folding more, and calling often. This new strategy was pushing Bridges off balance.
At the next break, Kenneally interrupted her route to the coffee machine.
‘When do you think this is going to be over?’ he asked.
‘It could be any time,’ she said.
‘I know that. I want to know when you think.’
‘Not today,’ she said.
‘Really? You think it’s going to run into tomorrow?’
‘I’m sure of it.’
She had said this to annoy Kenneally, but as soon as she had spoken the words, she realised that she believed them to be true. It was something to do with the changes in gear that the players were making – because Bridges had adjusted now to Gottschalk’s passive-aggressive style, and was mirroring it back at him, gathering more chips, which meant that Gottschalk had had to loosen up again in response, and there was an intimacy between these two players that was growing, and which wouldn’t be content with a speedy ending.
If the blinds had risen at every break that would have changed the rhythm of things, but as it was, the players continued to play and the dealer continued to deal, without respite apart from the scheduled breaks, until ten in the evening, when Bridges had little more than a slight lead and the game was suspended until noon on the following day.
As Day 2 was about to begin, Bridges reached across to shake his opponent’s hand, a gesture that surprised Gottschalk but then he grabbed hold of Bridges’s hand with both of his and energetically shook it up and down.
Play at first was tentative. Maybe they were tired. According to Tambini, Bridges had spent the night playing baccarat at the Ritz in the company of Xi Tianxi. Chips passed in small amounts back and forth. Nothing decisive occurred or threatened to. Gottschalk’s father dozed in the front row, with his hands folded over the belly bulge of his Metallica T-shirt.
And then came the big hand. Gottschalk raised pre-flop, Bridges re-raised and Gottschalk called. One of the chips from his call, an orange 500, rolled on its side away from the rest on a stuttering lonely route. Wendy had to stretch to gather it in, and this was, she realised, the first time that she had had to do so, and she wondered if she would ever have an opportunity to thank the players for their good manners. Bridges checked the flop, Gottschalk bet, and Bridges called. Both players checked the turn. Bridges led out on the river and for the first time in the match, Gottschalk delayed his action.
Bridges leant back against his chair. He riffled some chips together, clacking two stacks into one with thumb and little finger opposed. He stared at his opponent all the while. Gottschalk was looking down, his elbows on the table, his hands clasped into fists supporting his face, pushing his narrow cheeks into little pouches. His body swayed to a rhythm discernible to no one else in the room, or, maybe, just perceptible to his opponent.
He must have felt the force of his opponent’s attention upon him, which would have devoured a weaker man. He dwelled up, he hesitated, he dwelled up some more. Wendy had gathered the unused cards in the deck. She had nothing left to do. She imagined a soothing blue light moving up from the base of her spine that would radiate out, making the bad red light at the top of the spine shrink and fade and disappear.
And Gottschalk went all in. Decisively, he pushed all his chips towards the middle and crossed his arms and stared at the table.
Now it was Bridges’s turn to dwell up. Kenneally, who must have had some instinct for catastrophe and triumph, was standing behind her. He placed both his hands meatily on her shoulders.
‘Is this it?’
‘It could be,’ she said. She didn’t want it to be over.
The board was 4-5-8-J-K. It was the eight of hearts that had hit on the river, making a flush available as well as a straight. She guessed that Gottschalk had the straight – 6-7 was the sort of hand he liked to play – and the decision he had been struggling over was whether Bridges had the flush. With the flush, even a low one, Bridges surely would have called straight away. Or maybe Gottschalk would have bet the same way with the nut flush, to entice a call. Eventually, reluctantly, Bridges tossed his cards into the muck.
‘Nice hand,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ Gottschalk said, building his chip stack into high towers.
Gottschalk now had the lead. He went to work at increasing it, but Bridges fought back, fighting for every pot, scrapping for every chip.
She watched the hand replayed during the lunch break. It was nothing like she’d pictured: Bridges had a very thin piece of the board; with A-8, he had been contemplating calling the all in with third pair. And Gottschalk, with 2-3 of diamonds, had absolutely nothing. He’d made the bluff with the nut low.
Bridges had known. He’d heard the rhythm that Gottschalk was moving to. But he hadn’t been able to act on his knowledge. There had been just enough uncertainty to prevent him from making the hero call and winning the match.
Bridges and Gottschalk were watching the replay too, from opposite ends of the room with plates of food balanced on their knees.
Kenneally was in conference with Tambini. Wendy joined them.
‘We need another dealer,’ she said.
‘You quitting?’
‘No, but the way this is going, it’s too much for one person. You’ll need two dealers to alternate.’
‘We’ll raise the blinds.’
‘Can we do that?’ Tambini said.
‘I’m not paying for another day of this.’
‘Check with Robinson, but the rules I think say the two players have to agree to any change in conditions.’
‘Well, we’re going to have to make sure they do, then, aren’t we.’
Gottschalk didn’t mind. Bridges did.
‘It’s just starting to get interesting,’ he said.
Kenneally asked Gottschalk to persuade Bridges.
‘He would listen to you, I’m sure of it.’
‘He doesn’t want the blinds to be bigger?’
‘But unless they are, this might run on for another day. We’re not sure if we can hire the venue, and the TV people and so forth. So we thought you might have a word with him.’
‘If he doesn’t want the blinds to be bigger then neither do I.’
‘Well, thank you, thank you very much,’ Kenneally said.
The contest resumed, and the players were finding new ways to excel. Play was aggressive, ferocious, and elegant. Wendy had never seen poker played as well as this, and in such a sustained way. Sometimes, the action went to too dizzying a level for her to entirely comprehend what she had just witnessed – it was intimate, extraordinary, like watching two great minds opening up to each other in public.
Kenneally had to rent the venue for a third day, and most of the TV crew.
‘Just to hire these lights is killing us,’ he said. ‘But here,’ he said, passing over a watch to Wendy, and pulling down his shirt sleeve. ‘A bonus.’
Wendy went to the Ritz hoping to find Bridges there, and she did see Xi Tianxi at the high-stakes baccarat table, but Xi was gambling there alone.
Watching the TV crew set up for the day, Tambini told her Kenneally’s latest idea.
‘He wants to ask you to work out a way to stack the deck, deal them a cooler, you know? Kings versus ace
s, straight flush against quads, that kind of thing.’
‘I didn’t hear you say that.’
‘I said, he’s going to ask—’
‘I know. I heard. It’s a figure of speech.’
‘I know that. I was making a joke. But he’s desperate.’
‘I thought this was what he wanted to demonstrate? Poker, the ultimate game of skill.’
‘No one wants an event that goes on for ever.’
No one, that is, apart from the players. It wasn’t that they soft-played each other, Bridges was as aggressive as ever, Gottschalk as analytically ferocious. Each was playing to win. When the lunch break came, they both made small sighs of disappointment.
‘We’re going to have to downsize,’ Kenneally said.
Day 4 took place in Bridges’s suite. The players sat on sky-blue upholstered low chairs with frilly silk skirts at a bridge table that the hotel provided. To make way for the lights and the camera, the rest of the furniture was moved the other side of the dividing doors into the bedroom.
Day 5 was also in Bridges’s suite.
‘Doesn’t anyone have somewhere else to go?’ Kenneally said.
He had called a meeting after Day 5 had wrapped up.
‘Look, why don’t we split the prize money equally? Declare a draw. This has been fabulous, there’s been all kind of press attention. Both of you I know have been offered new sponsorship deals. It’s win-win-win.’
Bridges shook his head.
‘We play on,’ he said.
‘Rainer?’
‘What Mike says,’ he said.
‘Tambini?’
‘There’s nothing in the rules about us being able to call a premature halt. Natural disaster or act of God only. Maybe you’ll get lucky.’
‘There’s no such thing as luck,’ Kenneally said glumly.
Wendy did wonder, on a rain-stormy Day 6, when Kenneally disappeared for a large part of it, whether he had worked out a way to harness lightning or flood. But Day 6 concluded with Bridges having regained the chip lead and no natural or unnatural disasters having afflicted the hotel.
He Played for His Wife and Other Stories Page 10