I called the bet, and we went to the flop. Down came the king of diamonds, the nine of spades, and the queen of spades. With those cards revealed, it now fell to me to decide what to do. I felt like a deer in headlights. What was the right move here? Was I supposed to bet? If so, how much? That flop had revealed some pretty high cards, which was a little scary. Then again I had aces so that shouldn’t matter, right? I thought that my research in watching poker games and reading up on strategy might have prepared me for this, but now that I was staring down the barrel of an actual hand for actual huge amounts of money I was freezing up. I had just shoved the equivalent of fifty thousand dollars into the pot, which until I had taken that loan out of the bank was more money than I’d ever had to my name. No amount of studying up on the game could prepare me for actually having to play with this kind of money on the line. Conscious of all the eyes at the table being on me, and knowing I was probably making a mistake, I tapped my finger on the table to indicate to the dealer that I was checking. Now the play passed to Lucas. He looked at me for a second, then shoved his cards over to the dealer.

“I fold,” He said, “If you hadn’t let Nikita read you like that you might have gotten yourself a little more value there, newbie.”

I was stunned. Was that it? All that agonizing and Lucas wasn’t even going to play? The dealer slid the pot over to me and I added it to my pile, performing the task mechanically while my mind was elsewhere in some trancelike state. I had just made my first big bet and won, and the hard-fought battle I had been steeling myself for had never come. I thought about what Alva had said about the game of poker on that night when we had talked in the pub: It has its moments, but it’s mostly a lot of anxiety. She hadn’t been kidding.

The dealer shuffled up and dealt out a fresh new hand. Shirley seemed to decide she had a hand worth playing and put in a bet of twenty thousand chips, and Lucas raised to one hundred thousand. After a couple of folds from the other players, Nikita became the active player. He folded as well.

“Again?” Lucas scoffed, “You planning to play poker at all today big guy?”

“No point wasting time with belligerent donkey. I wait for you to bust yourself out of tournament.” Nikita stated.

I knew that “donkey” was a term for a blatantly terrible poker player. Lucas knew it as well, and his face darkened.

“Donkey, huh? We’ll see about that.” he said.

Everyone else at the table had folded except for Lucas and Shirley. One of the major problems with blinds this small was that nobody, with the obvious exception of Lucas, was willing to play with anything less than a great hand. If not for him I doubted there would be any real action at all. I noticed several of the cameras had migrated to our table as the other games didn’t seem to have much of anything interesting going on. I didn’t think I liked the idea of having my play broadcasted out to the rest of the world, but Lucas appeared to thrive on it. He gave one of the cameras a little wave with his sneering half-smile.

Shirley decided to call, pushing another eighty thousand chips into the pot to reach the hundred thousand total. The flop came down, revealing the ten of spades, the seven of spades, and the king of hearts. She checked. Lucas bet. She called. Then it was time for the turn. The five of spades was added to the board. Shirley looked at her cards and went went deep into thought, or went “into the tank” as it was referred to in the poker world. Lucas didn’t seem to be afraid to lose chips while everybody else was busy pussyfooting around and waiting for the “real” poker to begin. That fearlessness gave him an advantage here in the early game when most people were just trying not to be the first to bust out. Still, Shirley seemed to be getting just as tired as everyone else was of Lucas’s nonsense. She pushed a bet of fifty thousand chips.

“All In.” was Lucas’s response.

“Call.” Shirley had been expecting this. It was the exact same thing that Lucas had done last time.

With both players all in, the rules of the game stated that the rest of the hand must be played with the pocket cards face-up. Shirley and Lucas pushed their cards to the dealer who revealed them and set them above the cards on the board. If I had been hoping that Lucas was bluffing again I was sorely disappointed. He had been dealt a king-seven suited in clubs, which gave him two pair. I supposed that statistically he’d have to have an actual good hand eventually, but why did it have to be now of all times? Still, with an ace of spades and a ten of diamonds, Shirley was playing to a lot of outs. An ace would give her a two pair hand with aces high, good enough to beat Lucas’s kings. A ten would give her three of a kind. Any spade would give her a flush. She was behind right now, but with a good card on the river Lucas might be out of the tournament. I gripped the cushioned edge of the table tightly with my fingers, holding my breath to see what the river would be. The dealer, seemingly moving in slow motion, burned a card. Then he slid the top card off the deck and flipped it onto the table. My face fell.

The river card was the seven of diamonds. Not only had the river not helped Shirley out one bit, it had added insult to injury by upgrading Lucas’s hand to a full house. Lucas had busted Shirley in dramatic fashion, meaning that she would be the first player to leave the tournament. All this money and all this effort and she hadn’t even lasted one full orbit of the table. She stood up quietly and picked up her bag. She took it like a professional, but I could see that she was hurting inside. A pall hovered over the table as the Virginia girl wordlessly prepared to leave, nodding her silent goodbyes to the other players, but Lucas’s voice cut right through the somber atmosphere.

“Why the long face? You were the one complaining that we were going to be here forever, right?” he crowed, “Well now you get to hit the rail early! Have fun with your cruise and thanks for the chips!”

Shirley said nothing, but walked hurriedly away from the table and out of the room, trying to hide the tears in her eyes from Lucas and the cameras. I wanted to punch Lucas in the mouth. Was there no justice in this world? How is it that a sweet woman like Shirley had to leave while this abhorrent little weasel now had easily the largest pile of chips at the table? Lucas fixed his sneer on Nikita with a self-satisfied chuckle.

“So tell me big man, who’s the donkey now?” the Belgian asked.

Nikita looked back at Lucas, his thoughts completely unreadable behind those icy blue eyes. Then he opened his mouth and spoke in that resounding bass voice of his.

“I look to find donkey by braying noise he makes until man come along and beat him into shutting up.”

“Ohh, is Ivan mad? You want to actually play the game now? Any time you feel like getting off the sidelines let me know.” was Lucas’s snide response. Nikita said nothing.

At that point I was all for Nikita jumping into the game and giving Lucas a taste of the skills that had made him into a legend, but Nikita didn’t play the next hand, nor the next one, nor even the one after that. Lucas, seemingly happy with claiming his first scalp for now, eased off the high betting and there were only a few small skirmishes around the table. I lost a small hand of about twenty thousand chips to a Sicilian man whose name I didn’t know and there was a four-way game that Oliver came out on top of, which seemed to help his mood a little. All the while, Nikita sat with his arms crossed and continued to fold hands. After a full orbit of the table he had not put a single chip into the middle, save for his required blinds. All he did was stare at Lucas, his frigid eyes boring holes in the Belgian’s skull. If it had been me on the receiving end of that gaze I might have been a nervous wreck at this point. Truth be told, I was on my way to being a nervous wreck as it was. What was Nikita up to? Why wasn’t he doing anything? Surely one of the best players in the world should want to actually play, right? Especially with an annoying little upstart challenging his dominance? Was he just going to take it?

The button began to make its way back around the table again, and finally Nikita decided to act. He was on the big blind, and Lucas was once again in the fray. The Belgian had raised the bet to seventy thousand chips, and had leaned back in his chair to see what was going to happen.

“Raise.” Nikita said, reaching for his chips.

I was shocked. In order to raise, Nikita was required to at least double the current bet, and this was before even seeing the flop. Not even Lucas had made a bet higher than one hundred thousand pre-flop yet. Nikita shoved one hundred and fifty thousand chips into the pot, and continued to stare Lucas down.

“That’s more like it! Let's see what you've got, Vlad” said Lucas.

Oliver, who was the only other player still in the hand, quickly folded. Lucas grinned, and pushed in the chips required to call. The dealer burned a card, then went to the flop, revealing the deuce of hearts, the queen of hearts, and the six of spades. All eyes turned to Nikita to see what he would do. For the first time, I saw a hint of emotion on the big Russian’s face as a smile played around the edge of his lips. Then he turned his cards face up and pushed them to the center of the table.

“I fold.” he said.

Everybody looked at the cards that he had folded face up. He had been holding pocket queens, giving him three of a kind, an almost guaranteed win. Nikita Zakharov had just given away half his chips to his opponent intentionally.

“What are you thinking?” Lucas asked, baffled, “You call me a donkey and then you do this? Are you mocking me?”

“This is what I think of your poker.” Nikita said, his voice calm and clear, “I give enough of chips to leave no doubt. It would not do for you to think you ever had chance.”

“I don’t need your charity, but I’ll take it and laugh at you when you lose.” Lucas shot back.

“Shut up and give hand back to dealer.” Nikita commanded, “There is no point to stall. You have already lost.”