Pascal's Wager

Pascal’s Wager

By

Mark Jacobs

Copyright 2012 Mark Jacobs

Smashwords Edition

Table of Contents

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

I

A red A with a single diamond below it peeked out from beneath the upturned corner of the playing card sitting on the smooth green felt in front of me. Slowly, I let the corner drop back down to the table revealing the edge of the second card that sat on top of it. There was another red A waiting there, this one with a heart beneath.

Pocket aces.

It was what the philosopher Bertrand Russell would have laughingly referred to as one of those fortuitous concourses of favorable circumstances.

Seated in the high stakes area of the Mediterranean Hotel’s poker room, the richest and gaudiest of its kind, I was playing $300-$600 limit hold-em, which was the biggest game you could find at 11 a.m. on a weekday morning in Las Vegas. The Mediterranean was where the world’s best high stakes poker professionals daily plied their trade, a place where millions of dollars passed back and forth across the tables, sometimes on the turn of a single card.

Three hundred-six hundred, where all the bets were in $300 and $600 increments, was not a particularly large affair when compared with the highest stakes games the Mediterranean hosted but it was still big enough that only top professionals or wealthy compulsives could afford to play. The rule of thumb for a pro was that you sat down at the table with fifty big bets - in this case, $30,000 - in front of you.

I had $30,000. It was my entire bankroll and life savings combined.

I probably should have been playing in a game about 1/4 this size. But what fun would that have been? It was, perhaps, my one flaw as a poker player. I had, as the professionals termed it, a bit too much gamble in me. I was aware of this fact but felt it was something I could live with. I wasn’t an addict, I merely liked to push things as close to the edge as possible. That was where the game started to become interesting. It was in that spot, where others found only disabling tension, that I took a strange kind of refuge. Besides, as the legendary high stakes player Ted Forrest once said, if you’re not willing to risk everything, you limit your upside as a poker player. Maybe as a human being, too.

I raised with my aces and, in one of those concourses of unfavorable circumstances, no one had anything worth calling me with and the rest of the table folded leaving me with little to show for such a strong hand. Joe Smith was the big blind, the final person to act who already had put up a forced $300 dollar bet. He seemed to think about calling my $300 raise for just a moment.

No action, Joe? I asked casually.

He flashed me his cards - a deuce and a seven, the worst possible starting hand - and tossed them away with a dismissive flick of the wrist.

It’s all yours, Pascal, he said.

I flashed him my aces and we both shared a little grin, though mine probably contained a bit less mirth.

Nevada Joe Smith had won the main event at the World Series of Poker thirty years ago and was still regarded as one of the finest players in the world despite being near 70. He was sitting in on the 300-600 game because his game from the previous night, a $2,000-$4,000 affair, had broken up a couple of hours ago and being a widower and an insomniac, Joe had nowhere else to go.

The poker room was like that, a lone oasis out here in the high desert for those with nowhere else to go, nothing else to do, no better purpose in their lives than to push little clay disks worth hundreds of dollars around a table. But for some, it was akin to therapy. I found sanity and even solace in that mixture of probabilities and personalities.

Besides Smith, there were only three others at our table - eleven was just too early in the morning for most self-respecting poker players to be awake. To my immediate right was the Doctor, Alex Goldberg, probably the only one at the table with as much formal education as me, which actually was saying something. He had a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford but gave up what could have been a lucrative Silicon Valley career to come to Las Vegas and gamble for a living. He was a good poker player but was always broke owing to the fact he blew all his poker winnings over at the dice table... or on the ponies... or betting ballgames... or roulette... or anything else that gave him a temporary action fix.

The Doctor was the first one to act on the next hand and raised. I checked my cards and found a pair of threes - worth a call just to see the flop. I tossed out six black chips - $600. To my immediate left was the grizzled form of Battleship Jack McGee, a solid but conservative pro who got his nickname due to his time in the navy. He spent 20 years in the service relieving fellow sailors of their pay in card games before retiring and moving to Vegas to play full time. McGee called as well.

Smith, now in the small blind, was already invested for $150 and this time he decided to call for the extra $450.

That left the big blind, who was the oldest player at the table. Probably he was the oldest player in the whole poker room.

Blackie White - I had no idea what his real first name was - was a living legend in the poker world. The last of the old time road gamblers from Texas, he had been the best player on the planet years before the World Series of Poker was created to crown an official world champion. He was 99 years old and his withered hands shook so he could barely hold the cards. He no longer had the stamina to play in the ultra high stakes games with Joe Smith so he had to confine himself to playing what was, for him, an embarrassingly low stakes 300-600 game. But for all that, there was a hard set to his jaw and a vulturine sharpness in his hooded eyes that let you know he wasn’t quite dead yet.

Weyl, Blackie said in his Texas drawl, I won’t spoil the party. Let’s jes’ make this a family pot.

White called the $300 raise, meaning everyone at the table had plumped down six hundred bucks to see the flop. The dealer burned the top card in the deck, peeling it off and placing it face down in the discard pile, then methodically dealt out three cards face up in the middle of the table. This was the flop, the first three community cards that everyone merged with their own two hole cards to make the best possible hand they could.

The cards came out five, eight, queen, all of different suits. No help for my hand. Smith checked, Blackie checked and the Doctor bet out $300. I folded my pair of threes. McGee thought a moment then called. Smith folded too but Blackie White quickly called the bet. The dealer burned another card and dealt out the turn, or fourth up card. It was a deuce. Blackie checked once more, Goldberg bet again, this time the $600 bet. McGee folded and again Blackie called.

For the last time, the dealer burned the top card in the deck and dealt out the next card face up. The river, or final card, was an innocuous looking seven. White checked just as he had all along and Goldberg bet another $600.

Raise, announced Blackie White immediately pushing $1200 in black chips forward.

Goldberg stared at him for a moment as if he had found a dead roach in his morning oatmeal. Finally, grumbling a bit, he made a crying call.

White turned over a nine and a six. The river seven had made him a straight - five, six, seven, eight, nine. He had hit a gut shot - an inside straight draw - on the final card.

The Doctor looked like he was in need of surgery.

How the hell can you call there on the flop with nothing but a lousy gut shot, Blackie?! he shouted, turning over a pair of kings in frustration and showing them to the table.

You don’t think it was a good call? Blackie asked with a hint of malevolent playfulness in his voice as he reached out to rake in the $7500 pot.

Christ, no! You knew McGee probably wouldn’t stay to the end so you weren’t getting the odds. You’re a five and a half to one dog to make the straight!

Oh, I don’t think quite that much.

Yes you were!

Ask Silver, Joe Smith chimed in, pointing at me. If anyone would know, he would. What were the odds of him hitting his gut shot there, Pascal?

5.1 to 1, I answered reflexively.

Goldberg grumbled that Blackie still wasn’t getting the right odds from the pot to call but Blackie pointed out that he was indeed, if the Doctor called a checkraise on the end, which he had. He was right, I realized. He had been getting just slightly better than 5.1 to 1 money odds to call assuming McGee folded on the turn but Goldberg bet on the end and then called that last raise. White had dropped out of school in the ninth grade but he had known exactly what the mathematical probabilities were, just as he had known Goldberg would fall for the checkraise on the end.

See, Smith said to me as the next hand was dealt, and you thought that Ph.D. in math would never come in handy.

It was only a B.A., I answered.

"But from an Ivy League school, said Smith in the kind of tone one imagined the Queen of England might use at high tea. And I thought it was more than a B.A."

I got halfway through my master’s when I switched to a different degree.

And your daddy, the math professor, still hasn’t forgiven you yet, has he?

If I win the World Series this year, I’ll buy him a new Cadillac and maybe that will do it.

What did you switch to from math? asked Blackie, his hooded eyes watching me with mild interest.

Philosophy. I got a master’s in that but quit halfway through the Ph.D. program.

To do this? croaked McGee, in his bullfrog voice. It must be true, philosophers really are the most screwed up people on earth.

You don’t know the half of it.

I had come out to Las Vegas a little over two years ago when, at the age of 26, I’d decided to thwart the expectations of my academic-minded parents and quit a promising career as a scholar to pursue my dream of winning the World Series of Poker. I had cleaned up in the local fraternity games in college and made even more playing over the Internet but money wasn’t the reason I came here. As that gloriously degenerate compulsive, Dostoevski, had once written about yet another gambler, I had needed to find the man in me before he was lost forever. I didn’t think academia could do that for me. I sought to find meaning, not just in my life, but to existence in general.

The ten million dollars that came with the World Series title would have been nice, too.

Before the next hand was dealt the cell phone in my pocket chimed. I fished it out and leaned back from the table signaling I should be dealt out of the hand. The number display let me know it was the office calling.

Good morning, Maddie, I answered, cheerfully.

Morning, Pascal. How’d you know I wasn’t Turco? said the delightfully husky feminine voice on the other end.

Ed’s not smart enough to work the office phone by himself. Besides, he flew out to Hawaii on that divorce case, last night.

That’s right. I knew he was out of town but forgot exactly where. So are you up or down? she asked, knowing my morning habits.

I took a casual glance back at my chips and said. About even. So to what do I owe the honor?

New client... maybe. Girl just called here and said she needed to speak with the boss on important business. I told her Ed wasn’t available but his associate could help her.

"Associate. I like the sound. Should I have a business card made up calling myself that?"

It looks better than one that says broke card player.

I asked if she made an appointment for the client.

That’s the thing, she didn’t want to leave her name with me but said she needed to see you immediately. Asked if she could just go meet you wherever you were. I figured I should call and ask you.

Sure. You can tell her where I am and if she wants to come by the Mediterranean, I’ll be in the poker room all afternoon unless you need me for something.

Have I ever?

Bye, Maddie.

Bye, hon. Good luck.

I hung up and returned to the game. About ten minutes later, Maddie called again saying the mysterious female client had rang back and when informed of my location, said she’d be by in about a half-hour to speak with me.

Don’t blow it or Ed will be pissed off and you’ll be looking for another job as an associate gumshoe, she told me and hung up.

Associate Gumshoe. I didn’t know if that was better or worse than broke card player.

My first year in Vegas, I had played in the World Series of Poker and made it all the way to within a hairsbreadth of the final table, getting knocked out when an opponent hit the last deuce in the deck on the final card to beat my three eights with his four deuces, leaving me in tenth place. I took home $90,000 rather than the millions the top finishers all made. Nevertheless, I still believed it was my destiny to win the thing one day.

My second year in Vegas, I was the first person knocked out of the tournament in a field of more than 5,000 people.

Since then, I had suffered a few bad turns at the poker table and elsewhere. Living expenses had eaten up much of my bankroll and it took every cent I had to sit here daily in the 300-600 game where almost all my opponents were top professionals and whatever edge I may have had was so thin that I could have made almost as much playing in a game one-tenth the size. But if I had wanted to play it safe, I would have stayed in school and become an associate professor instead of a card player and associate P.I.

About nine months earlier, in need of income, a friendly poker player had recommended I contact Ed Turco. Turco was a former Vegas Metro police detective who had left the force to open his own private detective agency. Despite my lack of experience in the field, Turco took me on. He said he had a soft spot for gamblers in need but he was also desperate for a body to do grunt work for him. However, he did teach me the basics of the trade and even seemed pleasantly surprised by my performance so far. It was a good thing. I still needed the pay check. It cost ten grand to enter the World Series.

I was drawing to a small spade flush when I just caught a glimpse of a tall, willowy young woman on the other side of the high stakes area making inquiries. The floor manager pointed her over to my table and I lost sight of her as she made her way through the crowded room.

Bet, I announced on the flop and tossed three black chips into the center of the table with nothing but my four spades.

Battleship Jack called and everyone else folded.

Mr. Silver, came a voice from behind me that sounded like that first bird of spring following a long winter - filled with the promise of warmth and life.

That’s me, I answered, not bothering to look at her, never taking my eyes off the cards and my opponent as a two of hearts was dealt out.

I called your office before. They told me I could find you here. I needed to speak with you. It’s... very important.

I tossed six more black chips into the center of the table. Jack called me immediately. I could tell he never thought of raising or of folding, just calling.

I’m all yours after this hand, I said, still not bothering to look at her.

The dealer placed the final card in the center of the table. It was a three of diamonds. No help to my hand. All I had was a seven high. I thought just a moment, then checked. Jack instantly bet $600. His bet seemed just a bit too quick. I remembered his call on the turn when I sensed that he had given no thought to either raising or folding. Poker was a tale told by small observations like that. You added up all the minute details and in the end, if you were correct, it told a little story about exactly what your opponent held in his hand.

Raise, I announced, moving twelve black chips forward.

Jack shook his head and showed his cards before folding. He had been on a spade flush draw, the same as me. But he showed a ten high. I showed him my missed seven high.

Son of a bitch! he growled, shaking his head.

I finally turned to face the woman behind me. She looked even better than she sounded. She