He spent a few minutes circling the poker room, getting a feel for the place. He was in no particular hurry. He was looking for a loose table, one where a lot of money was being tossed out on each hand. He bypassed a table where the player with all the chips in front of him wore a Rolex watch. Forget that. The guy was either too wealthy or too good, and Phillip didn’t want to go up against him.

He paused at a table filled with seniors who’d been bussed in from a retirement home. They wore matching T-shirts, red with the silhouette of a setting sun in white. Play was passive, the betting haphazard, and one elderly woman had trouble remembering how hands were ranked. The guy next to her kept saying, “Alice, for god’s sake. How many times I gotta tell you, flush beats a straight and a full house beats a flush.” Small chip stacks at a table like that would probably take him weeks to get unstuck.

Once he’d made the rounds, he had the board person put his name on the list for the no-limit game on table number 4 or 8. This was No-Limit Texas Hold’em with a five-grand buy-in, rich stakes for his blood, but it was the only way he could think of to recoup his losses and put himself back on top. He preferred to play at the even-numbered tables, four being his lucky number. The first opening was seat 8 at table number 8, which he decided to view as a good omen, both being multiples of four. Phillip placed his chips to his right and ordered a vodka tonic. There were six guys already in the game and he entered in late position, which gave him a nice preview of the action. He let a couple of hands go by, showing discipline by folding on a jack-queen and then a pair of 5’s. Small pocket pairs, which rarely hit the flop, were tempting to bet and therefore dangerous.

Playing with borrowed money, he felt a certain burden to perform. Ordinarily, he liked the pressure of play because it sharpened his wits.