KINDERGARDEN GAME

The first evening I played poker at Jerry and Carla Prtikin’s Paris apartment I saw at once I had fallen into a cavern of riches.  Their invitees were even less skillful than the dunces who played in my afternoon game.  Let me tell you: in the poker business a winner's assets are his opponents.  Chez Pritkin I was facing a group of kindergartners.

 

  Jerry’s main objective was to show off to his wife.  He could not restrain himself from gloating whenever he outplayed her.  Since that aroused Carla’s anger, she would go after him by raising his bets.   It mattered not that they were playing with common funds.  Nor did they pay any attention to another player who might be pitted against them. If a third party happened to win a hand, they would accuse one another of crowding the action.  That attitude rubbed off on a second couple playing with common funds.  Stasia and Louis were both doctors.  Although they lived together they had no plans of getting married.  A redheaded beauty of Russian origin, Stasia never addressed Louis by anything other than his last name.  It was: ‘Mellot get me a drink,’ or ‘Mellot put in a chip for me,’ or ‘Mellot you play like an idiot.’  Louis Mellot, a yellow-papered cigarette invariably dangling from his lips, would make a sour face but not say a word.  Stasia was right.  Mellot did play like an idiot.  So did she.

 

 Also present at the Pritkin table was a tall bespectacled gentleman known as JLR. Jean-Luc Ravel held a high position in a publishing house.  A quiet, timid man, he played with great intensity, frequently examining his cards as though they held some secret formula.  He claimed to be related to the famed composer, but few people believed him.  I was an exception.  Not so much about Uncle Maurice as about the card he received when drawing to a straight or a flush.  All you had to do was ask and he would reply.  Not once did I catch him fibbing.  That was important.  Ravel was not afraid to mislead you.  After he bet, you had to study his face.  Whenever he bluffed, JLR unconsciously broke into a childlike smile.  

 

 Rounding out the Pritkin table were two art dealers from my afternoon game: Tricky Alain Bertier and crazy Marcel Favart.  Bertier did not seem pleased to see me but  Favart, better known as Baby Rose, greeted me warmly.

 

 “Ah, Bill, I think I shall get back some of the money you’ve taken from me at Madame Nicole’s.”

 

 Damn that Favart!   He turned out to be a better prophet than poker player.

 

                                                               *

 

 I had a problem with Arthur Sisse.  At the time, he was in the army.  Not as a soldier but as a dentist.  Stationed on the outskirts of Paris, Sisse was free most afternoons and every Saturday evening.  Time and again, he beseeched me to bring him to Pritkin's house.  Aware that the five day a week afternoon game was my bread and butter, I felt it was in my interest to convert Sisse from an archrival to a sometime ally.  Nevertheless, it was with no little reluctance that I asked Jerry if I could bring him along.

 

 “Sure,” said Jerry.  “We are short of players as it is.”

 

 That was because Jacqueline Sels was recovering from an operation and Baby Rose was out of town.  With their return the table would be full.  Secretly I was hoping that Jerry and Carla would not like Arthur.   Well guess what?  I was in for a rude surprise.  Arthur knew just how to play up to our host.  Since both men enjoyed expensive cigars, the dentist suddenly became Mister Generous in sharing his Havanas.   I get the feeling that an esoteric bond exists between cigar smokers, even people of opposing dispositions.  Puffing away together, Arthur and Jerry went off to some smoky land of their own, allowing Sisse to gain acceptance at the Pritkin game.

 

                                                                   *

 

 A few weeks later.  Dangerous session tonight!  Carla and Jerry have been faring poorly.  They have stopped attacking one another.  Over the past month I have won a lot of money at their house.  Sisse and Bertier have been winning too, but not nearly as much as me.  Baby Rose had to drop out for lack of funds.   Stasia, Louis Mellot and the Pritkins have been losing regularly.

 

 Five minutes ago I took a sizeable pot from Mellot.  That prompted a nasty comment from Sisse.  JLR looked at him quizzically.  Damn it all!  I will have to watch my step.  Ravel too enjoys an occasional cigar.

 

 At this game we only play draw. Jerry opens a hand at 100 francs ($20).  JLR follows.  The bet comes to me.  I have decided to play recklessly.

 

 “Three hundred,” I say, with a pair of fives.

 

 “Sauve qui peut,” (‘save yourselves’) says Sisse, implying that I only play locked hands.

 

 Liar!  He plays tighter than anybody else.

 

 Louis Mellot hesitates but follows.  Now it’s Stasia who has a problem.  You can see she wants to come in.  Thinking better of it, she throws her cards away with a display of ill humor.  Damn, damn, damn!  Maybe I should whisper in her ear that I am playing to lose.

 

 Both Jerry and JLR call.  Carla is busy making coffee.  It’s four in the morning.  We could all use a shot of caffeine. 

 

 “Three cards,” says Jerry.

 

 “One,” says JLR.

 

 If playing strongly, I would no doubt stand pat.  I know I have everyone psyched.  Then I would examine Ravel to see if he hit his hand.  That would leave only Mellot as a threat.  But I am not playing to win.  Wasn’t it Lenin who said: “sometimes you have to take one step backward in order to take two steps forward?”

 

 “Three cards,” I say.

 

  Stasia smacks her forehead with an open palm.  I’ll be damned.  For the first time in her poker-playing life, she did not come in with a pair of aces.

 

 “Only one,” says Mellot.

 

 Jerry bets a single chip after the draw.  I put him on a pair of kings.

 

 “Eight hundred,” says Ravel.

 

 Ironically, I’ve caught another five.  Like the police, cards are rarely there when you need them, but omni-present when you do not.

 

 “My time,” I say, before going through my ritual.  I had better not be mistaken.  With no trace of a smile, the editor has surely hit his hand.

 

 “I pay,” I say.

 

 Jerry throws his cards away out of turn.  I do not like the expression on his face.  Mellot shakes his head in disgust.  He shows us all that he has come up short drawing to a straight flush.

 

 “Alpinist,” says Ravel.  He has made a flush in spades.  In French a spade is a pique, homonymous with the word pic meaning the top of a mountain, ergo a mountain climber or an Alpinist.  The French try very hard to be clever.

 

 “Ayieee,” I say.  “I was sure you were bluffing.”

 

 Raking in the chips, Ravel does not conceal his pleasure.  From behind all night,
 he has suddenly moved ahead.  Next I will attempt to give some money back to the Pritkins.  That is not so easy.  A player cannot select his victims or his beneficiaries at will.  The cards have something to say about that.

 

 “What the devil is wrong with the rest of you?” says Ravel, uncharacteristically verbose.  “I have no problem whatsoever beating the American.”

 

 Bless him, bless him, bless him!  I could not have phrased it better myself.  That son of a bitch Sisse has a smirk on his face wide enough to drive a truck through.  Well it's my own damn fault.  How could I have been such an idiot to bring him here?