Alva was already there when I arrived. We shared a quick glance between us as I took my seat, after which we made a point of avoiding each other’s eyes. That quick glance was all I needed to confirm that her trademark smile was conspicuously absent. She wasn’t any happier about this than I was. For as much as we were trying not to look at each other, however, several other pairs of eyes at the table seemed to be locked on us. Most people seemed to have the common decency to not say anything that would make a bad situation worse. Of course, there was one player in particular for whom common decency was a completely foreign concept and when that player strode up to the table about thirty seconds after I had taken my seat he wasted no time in jumping straight to mockery.

“There he is, ladies and gentlemen, let’s all have a bow for his majesty the King of Hearts!” Lucas stood next to his chair and inclined his head and torso slightly in a shallow bow before taking his seat, “So tell me your highness, how’s the quest to win the heart of your fair maiden coming along? Or maybe I should ask her? Hey, Alva, feeling like riding into the sunset on a white horse with prince charming over here?”

I hadn’t thought there was a force in the world that could make Lucas’s voice any more painful to listen to, but having a splitting headache for him to aggravate did the trick. I winced both from the physical pain and the humiliation. Beside me, I heard a faint, high-pitched noise escape Alva’s throat. Thankfully it wasn’t loud enough for Lucas to hear, but I knew that his words were striking home. Poor Alva. She really would have been better off if she had never met me. Just my sheer presence was making her miserable, and that in turn made me feel even worse. I couldn’t stand that Lucas was putting her through this. I decided I had to say something, even if It seemed pretty clear that I didn’t have a leg to stand on.

“Leave Alva alone, Lucas. If you want to make fun of me, fine, but why do you have to drag her into it?”

“You see? Even now he’s riding to your defense in his shining armor. You’ve got yourself a keeper there, Alva.” Lucas jeered.

“Am I missing something here?” Robert Terrence piped up. It appeared that he was one of the people not yet in the know about me. He was already well into his first bloody mary which had only been delivered to him a minute or two before. The very sight of alcohol being consumed made me feel a little queasy right now, although that was the least of my concerns at the moment.

“Oh, so you hadn’t heard? Well, let me fill you in…” With a sadistic grin, Lucas launched into the story of my conversation with Nikita and how I had run away from the scene of Vincente’s marriage proposal, complete with his own elaborations to make me seem even more foolish than I felt was absolutely necessary. I stared down at the blue felt of the table in front of me all the while, unable to raise my eyes. It felt like nothing short of a small miracle when Lucas’s recounting of events was brought to an end by the announcement that it was time to begin play.

The dealers shuffled up, and as they began to deal the cards around the table I stole a sideways glance at Alva. She was sitting with her arms and legs crossed and her face turned down, closing herself off from the world with her body posture. It killed me inside to see her like this, and I decided then that if my being here was going to cause her to feel this way, it would be best if I wasn’t here at all. I didn’t even bother to take a look at the cards I had been dealt, I simply waited for the play to make its way around to me. The blinds were in the pot, the Estonian player folded, and Danni Romano looked at her hand for a moment before deciding to get in on the action. Lucas, true to form, decided to raise. The French player called. Then, finally, it was my turn. Without so much as glancing at what I had in the pocket, I pushed my whole stack of chips into the center.

“All in.”

There was a pause. Everybody stared at me in astonishment. I heard Danni mutter something to herself in Portuguese, and then, to my amazement, everybody folded. I finally snuck a peek at my hand. All I had was a six-three suited in diamonds. It was a nearly worthless hand, and yet I had just won the pot. I was almost a little frustrated, I hadn’t even been trying to win! In fact I had been trying to lose! If anybody had called me I would almost certainly have been out. I passed my hand back to the dealer. Everybody seemed to have gone quiet.

“What the hell was that?” Lucas finally broke the silence, “And people call me reckless. You trying to impress your queen or what?”

I said nothing, I simply waited for the next hand. No big deal, I’d just keep doing this until somebody knocked me out. The next hand was dealt and once again I didn’t bother looking at my cards, I just shoved immediately. Once again, everybody folded. This process repeated itself two more times, and my pot was slowly starting to get a little bigger. Finally, however, I managed to get someone to call.

The Frenchman sitting to my right, who came into the day as a short stack like me, seemed to like his hand and decided that this would be a good time for him to nearly double up his chips. When I pushed all in he called, and we both turned our hands up and gave them to the dealer. It was an interesting experience, learning not only the contents of my opponent’s hand this way but the contents of my own. The Frenchman was playing with a great pocket, holding an ace-king suited in clubs. Meanwhile, I had the ten of clubs and the deuce of spades. It was clear, the difference in power between a hand that was consciously chosen to play and a hand that was selected purely at random. My opponent would be a huge favorite going into the flop.

The six of diamonds, trey of spades, and eight of hearts came down, providing no help to anybody. I glanced over at the Frenchman. He appeared to be sweating it out. It was in much the same boat, but for the opposite reason. This could finally bust me out of this tournament, giving me all the excuse I needed to get away from Alva and this nightmarish experience. The card on the turn was the trey of diamonds, which paired the board but still left my opponent ahead with an ace kicker. I began to gather what few belongings I had with me, and the Frenchman appeared to be allowing himself some degree of excitement as he prepared to gather a significant enough number of chips to put himself back in the race. Nobody said a word as we waited for the river to come down and seal my fate. The dealer burned a card, slid another card off the deck, and turned it face up on the table.

I stared at the card, dumbfounded, and the deuce of clubs stared back at me from the river. Now holding a hand of treys over deuces, I had emerged victorious and doubled up my chips, despite my best efforts to lose. The Frenchman swore, his stack now so small that he was playing with only two or three big blinds. He wouldn’t be long for this tournament.

“Better to be lucky than good I guess.” Lucas remarked.

“You would know all about that, wouldn’t you?” I couldn’t resist firing back.

All of a sudden my stack, while still below the tournament average by a good bit, was significant enough that I had a real chance again. It felt strange. Even though I had been trying to lose, making such a comeback in such spectacular fashion felt good enough that I managed to reclaim a little bit of my mojo. Maybe this wasn’t so impossible after all! Maybe there was still a chance that I could pull a win out of thin air! I glanced over towards Alva on my left, and to my amazement I saw her looking back at me. Her smile still wasn’t there, she still clearly wasn’t happy, but she had unfolded her extremities and was now leaning on the table and looking over at me curiously. It was like she had become intrigued enough by my bizarre line of play that it had somewhat overwritten her desire to avoid me. It wasn’t forgiveness, and it certainly wasn’t a reciprocation of my feelings towards her, but it was something better than the unhappiness that I had been causing her before.

With this realization came an even bigger question: If I managed to make a deep run in this tournament, was there maybe some chance that Alva might at the very least be willing to count me as a friend again? After all, her main points of contention with me were that I would be putting my own financial downfall on her conscience and that I had no reason to be here other than to pursue a relationship of some sort with her. If I could avoid being ruined, and if I could prove I belonged here at this table in my own right, would that be enough for her to realize she didn’t need to be angry with me? Maybe it was a long shot, but why should I let that stop me now?

In this moment, for the first time since the sight of Vincente proposing to Alva had crushed my spirit the night before, I saw a ray of hope in the future. It was faint, but it was there, and all because I had given up on constantly playing safe poker and had put my chips into the center of the table without even looking at my cards, a play which didn't make any conventional kind of strategic sense. Something that Nikita had told me before suddenly popped up in my memory: Sometimes stupid mistake favors genuine idiot. Well, if I wasn’t a genuine idiot then who was? It was time to stop hedging my bets, time to stop telling myself what was impossible. From this moment forward I was in it to win it. Adrenaline flooded my system, banishing my headache and restoring clarity to my thoughts. I could do this! I could win it all!

Now all that was left was to figure out how.