Day 6

For most of the day, my opponents consisted of seven professionals and one experienced amateur. A French-Canadian named Marc sat on my immediate left, and to his left was the Taiwanese-born Kenny, who grew up in the U.S. but now lives in Hong Kong.

The player on my right was a particularly quiet Asian guy about my age. I never learned his exact ethnicity or country of origin. To his right was Ruben, Two Plus Two’s “rubenrtv”, a Dutch pro who, like me, is sponsored by PokerStars. Next there was Stefan, of Switzerland, and then an older guy who seemed to live in the U.S. now but, based on his appearance and accent, was probably born in Vietnam. In the 5 seat was 23-year-old Canadian internet superstar “Ch0ppy”.

Then there was John. John was an old-school pro from the days when you didn’t need to specify that you played “live poker” because there was no other way to play. He asked Stefan how old he was, and when he heard 25, he smiled. “This is my 25th WSOP,” he told us.

John was one of the least likable people I played with during my time in Vegas. He never did anything particularly egregious, but everything about his behavior suggested that I wouldn’t like him if I got to know him. He complained constantly about small, easily correctable errors on the part of dealers or players. He once said, humorlessly, to a player who accidentally threw the wrong number of ante chips into the pot: “Ante is 4,000 now. Been that way for an hour.”

When he won pots, even pots that weren’t particularly large, he gloated. “Get outta here!” he barked dismissively at Stefan after the Swiss pro bet at a flop and folded to one of his raises.

An attractive female reporter no more than half his age approached him during a lull between hands to ask for an interview. “Sure,” he said amicably, then turned to face her and asked, “What’s your name?” in a creepy-old-man voice that made it easy to hear “little girl” at the end of his question even though he hadn’t said it.

I’m sure John hadn’t played as many hands of poker in his career as we twentysomethings from the internet, but there’s something to be said for experience actually sitting across the table looking at your opponents. John had been deep in the Main Event before and seemed all around more comfortable at the table than the rest of us. While we all stared in stony silence, John remained talkative without giving away terribly much. I got the sense that I wasn’t not only one who wished he’d shut up.

The day did not get off to a good start for me. It seemed like every time I raised, someone would re-raise and my cards would be not quite good enough to continue. Either my opponents had decided that I was easy prey and were bluffing me incessantly, or they just had good timing. It’s easy to get discouraged and assume the former, but really we are talking about five or six instances here. With such a small sample size, it could easily be plain bad luck rather than bad play causing all these re-raises. I resolved not to get frustrated and to keep playing my game.

Taking a slightly different tack, I picked out one of the more aggressive players at the table and re-raised him on a bluff. He stared me down and then four-bet me. Trying to feel, or at least look, nonplussed, I folded. He showed a bluff.

Finally I picked up an Ace and a Queen. This wasn’t an ideal hand, but given how often people were playing back at me, it was good enough. I raised, resolving to move all-in if anyone re-raised me. They all folded. Not long after, I raised again with a weaker hand. Kenny, who’d been the worst of the offenders, re-raised me. I had to fold again.

A few hands later I picked up a suited Ace-King. I raised, this time downright eager to get re-raised. I kept the same blank stare that I’d used every time I’d raised with weaker hands, but instinctively I focused it on Kenny, even before it was his turn to act, simply because he’d re-raised me so often. He met my gaze, and for a moment there was a really intense staring contest between us, neither wanting to flinch.

Then, involuntarily, he giggled. He knew why I was staring at him. I couldn’t help it; I cracked a smile as well at this understanding passing unspoken between us. The sudden release of tension felt good. When it was his turn, he folded.

Thankfully, Stefan did re-raise. As planned, I moved all-in, and he folded. I was glad to have the opportunity to show the table that I wouldn’t be bullied forever. Whether by coincidence or intimidation, the re-raising slowed down after that, and I started accumulating chips in the manner that I preferred.

Heroic Call

The two most remarkable hands of the day occurred in quick succession. Blinds were 15K/30K with a 5K ante. Stefan raised to 60K in late position, and the two players between us folded. I was the big blind, the last guy that Stefan had to get through to escape with a pot worth 90K. I called with ATo, and we saw a flop of 386, all different suits.

I checked, and Stefan bet 50K. Given how small his bet was, calling was a no-brainer.

The turn brought the Jack of clubs. I checked again, and now Stefan bet 169,000, a good deal more than he’d bet on the flop but barely half the pot. It occurred to me that he could bet almost any pair, given how wide my flop calling range would be against his very small bet, but for the same reason he had a lot of incentive to bluff. I called again.

The river was another 6. I checked, and after a long pause, Stefan bet 252,000. I still had no pair, but relative to the huge number of hands with which Stefan would have raised pre-flop and bet that flop, very few would actually be good enough to bet for value on both the turn and river. Either he’d just made trip 6′s, he’d paired the J on the turn, or he’d started with a big pair. If he didn’t have those hands, then he was bluffing.

Any other pair and probably even better Ace-high hands would be too weak to bet for value but too good to bluff. In all likelihood, he would have been happy with those hands just to check and win at showdown.

There was more than 800K in the pot, and it would cost me barely 250K to call. Still, the bet represented well over 10% of my remaining stack, so I didn’t want to take it lightly. I was pretty sure I was going to call, but I kept my eye on Stefan as I counted out the necessary chips. He didn’t give off much, but if anything he seemed a little uncomfortable that I hadn’t folded yet.

I pushed my 252K into the pot and was relieved to see him tap the table. “Good call,” he said. When I make a really heroic call like this one, I feel I’ve earned the right to see his cards, so I nodded for him to turn them over. He showed T9 for a turned straight draw, and then I showed my AT.

“Whoah!” John shouted. “Now we’re playing poker!” He extended his fist, and while I’m not generally inclined to celebrate, I do respect my elders, so I gave him a bump.

“He could have been bluffing with Ace-Queen,” John added, causing my respect for him to dwindle instantly. As I argued above, Stefan would likely have felt that a hand like AQ was strong enough that he wouldn’t need to bluff with it. The fact that John didn’t realize that said a lot about how much he didn’t understand about hand reading. That was good information for me to have and a good example of why I try not to talk much, even when I’m not in the hand. Anything you say can be used against you.

Miracle

One advantage of letting the table see me make a call like this is that they tend not to bluff me as much afterwards. That makes it easier for me to steal pots and also to let go of hands when facing aggression.

Of course, an unbluffable image is less desirable when I’m holding pocket Aces, which I was just a few hands later. I made my standard early position raise to 70K. John called, Ch0ppy called behind him, and everyone else folded. Now I was out of position against two players, at least one of whom was very good, and I was going to have to be careful. Where’s all the re-raising now? I sighed to myself.

The flop came K77, all different suits. I wasn’t worried about John having a 7, but for Ch0ppy it was a possibility. I bet 150K, hoping that John would call and Ch0ppy would fold. John folded and Ch0ppy called. That certainly didn’t mean I was beat, but it did mean that I had to be careful.

The turn was a 4. I checked, and Ch0ppy checked behind me, which was a relief.

I felt good about my hand until I saw another K come on the river. The only thing to do was to check and hope that he would either turn a small pair into a bluff or try to bet a higher pair for value. He bet 250K, and I paid him off without too much thought.

Much to my surprise, he showed a pair of Kings for quads. “I didn’t realize you’d raised, or else I would have re-raised,” he explained as he raked in the pot.

I threw my cards away facedown, but my mind was racing into an alternate universe where Ch0ppy read the action correctly, we got it all-in preflop, and I was on my out the door right now. “Literally a miracle that I didn’t lose it all there” I tweeted.

In the Zone

The last hand before a break, especially a dinner break, always means fireworks. Some people are eager to fold and get out of the room, which makes other people more inclined to steal, which makes other people more inclined to resteal. Ranges get wider and sometimes it just turns into a pissing match.

I was dealt 9′s in the CO, which are exactly the sort of medium-strength hand that can be tough to play with that sort of dynamic. The action folded to me, and I opened to 60K. Marc called on the Button, and the blinds folded.

We got a J62 flop with two hearts. I bet 85K, about half the pot, and he raises to 225K. It wasn’t impossible for him to have a Jack, but my hand was much too good to fold. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite good enough to raise, either, so I was forced to call and play poker. I expected that flush draws and perhaps even 54 or 43 were in his range as well, but I also supposed that he wouldn’t often continue bluffing once I called the flop. Given how unlikely my 9s were to improve, that made the hand a sort of reverse freeroll for me. I believed I had the best hand more often than not, but Marc had a good chance of drawing out on me, and I couldn’t expect him to put much more money in the pot unless he did.

The turn was an offsuit 7, about as good a card as I could ask for. Not wanting to let Marc check behind, I bet into him again, 250K this time. This seemed like the best way to charge him a little something for his draws and maybe even induce another bluff. After a lot of thought, he called.

The river was an offsuit 5. I checked, and he quickly checked behind. Certain that my 9s were good, I turned them over and collected the pot.

This is what I mean about being in the zone. I’m struggling to think of another time that I’ve taken this line of calling a flop raise out of position and then betting into the raiser on the turn, but even in retrospect it seems like exactly the right play for this situation. At the time, it just came to me because I was in the moment.

Part of me didn’t want to break for dinner for fear of losing this focus, but another part of me was tired and badly wanted a break. Playing such intense poker is exhausting.

I was eager to share these exciting hands with Nate, who’d been my dinner companion for the last few nights. When I called him, he broke the bad news that he’d been eliminated earlier in the day.

To his credit, he was in fine spirits and still willing to eat and talk poker with me despite his recent exit. In fact, he was eager to talk about my day and help me strategize for the next four hours. It was great to get away from the table a bit without leaving the “poker zone” altogether, and Nate’s level-headedness put me in a good mindset heading into the second half of the day.

Ace-High Again

Nothing of much interest happened for me during the 20K-40K level. In the last level of the night, blinds were 25K/50K with a 5K ante. Perhaps in part because of my big call from earlier, I’d been stealing a lot of pots uncontested. I raised to 100K again, this time with Ace-Queen. Everyone else folded, but John called out of the big blind. “You know I’m good for a call,” he said.

It wasn’t really true, but I tried not to read too much into his statement one way or the other. In a lot of ways, I believed I was a better player than John, but he was probably a hundred times more experienced in the live arena. That meant that his ability to give off reverse tells was probably better than my ability to interpret those tells accurately. Better not to play his game at all, I decided, and just play my cards the way I would if I were online and unable to see or hear him.

The flop was a really ragged 842 with two spades. He checked. My AQ wasn’t exactly a monster on this board, but it was probably the best hand. Against a trickier player, I would have either checked or bet intending to call a raise, but John was playing so straightforwardly against me that I just went ahead and bet 125K. I’d welcome a fold, but it actually wasn’t out of the question that he’d call with a few hands worse than mine.

“All in,” he said quickly, shoveling about 850,000 chips into the pot. I didn’t have a pair, but I didn’t fold right away either. Something smelled a little funny to me. I tried staring him down, but he just leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and showed me a crocodile smile. “Why are you looking at me? Action’s on you,” he taunted.

“This is going to be a slow one,” I told him as I ran through the possibilities. He’d probably do this with any pair, but it’s not that easy to make a pair. Even getting good odds out of the big blind, I don’t know how often he’d call a raise with a 4 or a 2 in his hand. He’d been complaining about how aggressive I was, so it was possible he slowplayed a big pair pre-flop trying to trap me.

I didn’t think he was putting his stack in there on a stone bluff. He could be on some sort of draw, though, in which case I’d be ahead. The problem was that I wouldn’t be all that far ahead, and this was half my stack we were talking about. Plus I had the Ace of spades, which limited the number of flush draws he could have.

“I feel like you’re on a draw,” I told him.

He shrugged. “Cost you seven hundred and change to find out.” I stared at him some more. “Time,” he told the dealer. “This is getting ridiculous.”

The floorman arrived quickly. “Time has been called on Seat 1,” the dealer explained.

“Has the player had adequate time to think?” The dealer confirmed that I had. “You have 70 seconds to act,” the floorman explained to me, setting a timer where I could see it. “When this reaches 0, your hand will be folded.”

I nodded my understanding and continued to think, trying not to let my distaste for John cloud my judgment. Sure, busting him would be sweet, but facing his smirk if I doubled him up sure wouldn’t be. I looked back at my cards, confirmed that I really did have the Ace of spades, and then folded.

John eagerly flipped over Jack-Ten of diamonds, and there was that grin! His hand was much weaker than I expected, even for a bluff. Against that hand, I was a 3:1 favorite and folding was a big mistake. I’d been outplayed, plain and simple. A player made a move that I hadn’t thought he had in him, and he’d gotten the better of me with it. That was a fact, and it was in the past, and all I could do now was move on.

“Were you thinking about calling him with Ace-high?” Kenny asked me. I nodded. “Wow, man. Your reads are sick.”

“They aren’t worth anything if I don’t have the courage to act on them,” I said in a rare display of frustration. He shrugged, clearly still impressed, which helped. It was hard to beat myself up over a fold that half the table wouldn’t have thought twice about. Then again, the fact that I’m capable of plays that other players aren’t is where my edge comes from, so I can’t just write off mistakes like that.

Thankfully the night was almost over, so I would have the chance to rest and refresh my mind before playing much more. I won a few more small pots and finished the day with 2.5 million chips, barely half the average.

At the end of each day, all of the remaining players count their chips, place them in a sealed bag, and record their chip count on the outside of the bad. The dealer has to verify the chipleader at each table, which for the first time all tournament was yours truly. “He deserves it,” John said. “He played the best.”

“I made the wrong fold to you,” I said, but he just smiled.

Overall, I felt good, great really. It had been a grueling day, as evidenced by the fact that not even the chipleader at our table came close to the tournament average. Tough players are hard to eliminate, and if you don’t lose any players, then you never get new players with new chips at your table. We mostly pushed the same chips back and forth all day, but at least at the end of it all I’d walked away with more than anyone else. I had that to be proud of that.

Day 7

I woke Monday morning to an inbox flooded with congratulations on making it to Day 7 and encouragement to make it all the way to the final table. With that goal in sight, the enormity of what was at stake here finally started to creep in. I’d been trying hard not to get distracted by what was going on at other tables: who was getting eliminated, who had how many chips, what the average was, how much money I’d won so far, etc. I knew that friends and family following along would enjoy knowing these things, and I passed them along, but mostly I let them flow through me but not linger in my brain.

All I wanted to do was sit down at my table and play the cards I was dealt to the very best of my ability. Beyond that, it was out of my control, and I was going to take everything else as it came. If the cards fell in my favor, then all of a sudden another day would be over and I would still have chips when so many others did not. And if the cards did not fall in my favor, as would inevitably happen for all but one of us, I intended to take that in stride.

It was so far so good until Sunday night. With only 57 players remaining, I reckoned I had about a 10% chance of making it to the final table even with my below average stack. That was an exciting thought, and combined with the adrenaline of playing some of the most intense poker I’ve ever played, it disrupted my sleep somewhat. Once again, though, that was largely beyond my control.

Oddly, the atmosphere on Day 7 was anticlimactic. The massive convention center was nearly empty. A handful of tables hosted just a few dozen poker players. A couple of fans lingered on the rails, but it was nothing like the mob scene that was Days 1 and 2, when thousands of players were still in the tournament and hundreds of tables stretched from wall to wall. The Poker Kitchen, a makeshift cafeteria erected to feed all of these people, was closed, and most of the vendors who had lined the hallways in earlier days were gone. With so few tables, cameras and reporters no longer needed to rush, scramble, and jockey to get to the action. When anything exciting happened, it was easy to find and there was room for all to see.

Everyone was at once excited to be here, having the time of his life but also nervous as hell about everything at stake: not just the money but the quite possibly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become a poker celebrity. We all wanted to savor the moment. There was at once camaraderie, a sort of brothers-at-arms mentality, but also, of course, an intense rivalry. After all, only one of us was going to win.

So there was this weird dynamic where everyone was a little giddy, both excited and nervous, but trying to maintain a stoic poker face. No matter how much I tried to involve my friends and family in the goings-on in Las Vegas, I knew that none of them appreciated and shared the experience half as well as the guy sitting next to me, yet self-interest dictated that I do my bestnotto communicate with him.

That’s not to say that the players weren’t wired. Seated on my left was Guillaume Darcourt, a Frenchman who wore strong cologne and whose short, spiky hair was died a bright pink that belied his age. At 38, he was the oldest player at the table and well above the median for the remainder of the field. This morning he seemed calm and collected, but last night he’d had two outbursts at the floor staff, once when told he had to show his cards to the ESPN cameras and once when told he could not speak French while he had cards.

To his left was Kenny Shih. I’d played with Kenny the night before and found him to be a nice guy and a tough opponent to have on my left, which was right where he was again. His play yesterday had been fearless.

Next were Stuart Tuvey and John Hewitt, both American internet pros. Between them sat Sebastian Rutherberger, a tough player who thankfully had fewer than a million chips, the shortest stack of any of the remaining players.

In the 8 seat was Christopher Moore, one of the players who most worried me. He had twice as many chips as I did, and based on his results in other tournaments, he knew how to use them. Thankfully he was two seats to my right.

On my immediate right was Erick Lindgren, by far the most famous player at the table. Erick has an extremely impressive record of success dating back years, though he told the table he’d never made it past Day 3 in the WSOP Main Event. “This is uncharted territory for me,” he told us, then, pointing at me, added, “Not like this guy.” Apparently I wasn’t the only one who’d done some research. Erick started play with almost exactly as many chips as I had.

Raising and Folding

On the third hand of the day, the action folded to me on the button, where I’d been dealt a pair of Tens. Kenny, in the big blind, knew that I liked to make small steal raises from late position. I’d done it all day yesterday, and he’d re-raised me more than a few times. I pushed 120,000 chips into the pot.

Guillaume looked at his cards and then looked at me. I’d never played with him, but based on what I’d heard, I felt confident that I could play my Tens very strongly. If he re-raised, I’d be moving all in. Maybe he saw that on my face, more likely he just didn’t have much of a hand even for bluffing, but for whatever reason he folded.

Now the action was on Kenny. He fixed me with the stare I’d come to know so well yesterday. I met his gaze and breathed deeply, counting my breaths and trying to mimic exactly how I’d looked yesterday all those times that I’d folded to his re-raises. He fiddled with his chips and pursed his lips. I could feel the re-raise coming. I knew that he preferred to end pots pre-flop rather than play after the flop, so if he did re-raise, it would be all-in. I was not just ready but eager to call.

He folded. I won the blinds and antes, which were not small but not nearly the prize I’d hoped for.

Two hands later, I was dealt QJo, not a particularly good hand in middle position but good enough for a steal. I pushed 120,000 chips into the pot, just as I’d done with my Tens. Guillaume and Kenny quickly got out of the way. Stuart in the small blind looked at his cards, thought for a moment, and then folded.

Sebastian looked at his cards slowly and methodically, and then looked at me. I tried to match his gaze but it was too intense for me, even with my dark sunglasses, and I ended up looking at the wall behind him.  After staring at me coolly for a good minute, he pushed all of his chips into the pot. There was nothing for me to do but fold.

After that I folded for a bit. Kenny ended up getting all of his chips into the pot with a pair of Aces, making him a big favorite against John’s Jacks. The cameras were on him as the dealer revealed the flop. While he had cards, Kenny’s poker face was as good as they come, but now, even as a 4:1 favorite, he was a nervous wreck. His head was bowed, possibly in prayer, and he was visibly shaking. “Please, please, please, please,” he whispered.

The flop was 9 T Q. Kenny nearly tumbled out of his chair and into the arms of his friends watching on the rail just behind him. His fate was about to be decided by what was essentially a coin flip: heads and he would more than double his chips to a comfortable three million, tails and he would be out of the tournament.

If he was a nervous wreck before, then he was practically a puddle on the floor now. “Come on, give me a low card. Low card!” On the face of it, there’s nothing wrong with a display of emotion like this. All of the chips are in the pot, so there’s no need to worry about signaling strength or weakness. Many players appreciate the opportunity to release some bottled-up tension, and it certainly makes for good TV.

Personally, though, I work very hard not to feel those emotions in the first place, and I think that making a conscious effort not to display what I am feeling is a good first step. Once I get my chips in the pot, I’m done with the part that I can control. Permitting myself to get attached to the outcome, positive or negative, of the turn of a card doesn’t strike me as wise. Not to mention that, even if you haven’t revealed any information that will affect the outcome of this hand, demonstrating that you care so much about the money may entice aggressive opponents to bully you in the future. Better to meet your fate, whatever it may be, with steely resolve.

Kenny’s fate was to survive, for now. The river was a 7, which I’m sure looked just enough like an 8 to make his heart skip a beat before his eyes figured out what they were really looking at and his brain told the rest of his body that it was all OK. Then he whooped, high-fived a friend, clapped, and gleefully stacked his chips.

Change

Just a few hands later, a floorman arrived with an armful of plastic chip racks. This meant that three more players had been eliminated from the tournament. There were now 54 of us, and we were about to be consolidated from 7 tables down to 6. We all muttered “good luck” to each other, but Kenny and I exchanged particularly heartfelt well-wishes. Oddly, battling each other all day the previous day had brought us closer together.

I was deposited at a new table, with opponents who were mostly unknown to me. I folded my small blind, and then picked up KQ the next hand, which was plenty good enough for a late position raise. The player in the big blind, who I later learned was Matt Giannetti, counted how many chips were in my stack and then called. We saw a J 7 3 flop with two diamonds.

He checked, and I bet 150K, about half the pot. Matt raised to 420K, and my first instinct was to suspect a bluff. There were only a few legitimately good hands that I thought he would play this way, and it seemed much more likely that he was attempting to bluff-raise my continuation bet on a dry flop.

I could have re-raised him again, but that would be expensive. I figured that just calling would be enough to freeze him up if he was bluffing, and besides there were a lot of good turn cards for me. I could make top pair with a Q or a K, a diamond would give me a good flush draw, and a T, 9, or A would give me a straight draw. I called, trying to act quickly and casually, as though I were confident in the strength of my hand, which of course I was not.

The turn brought the 4. He checked. Believing that he was now giving up on the pot, I took a small stab it, dropping 4 pink chips worth 100,000 each into the pot. These were the largest denomination chips used in the tournament, and they weren’t introduced until the end of Day 5. The vast majority of players who enter the event will never hold one. And here I was bluffing off four of them.

To my surprise and dismay, he called. I wasn’t sure what to put him on now. I didn’t think he’d play a really strong hand like this. He could have a diamond draw, but I’d expect him to be more aggressive with that, too. It felt most like he had a medium-strength hand and was putting me (correctly) squarely on a bluff. It was unfortunate that I’d invested nearly a million chips in this pot, but no sense in throwing good money after bad. I resolved to give up my bluff and just hope to catch a K or Q on the river.

The river was the 2 of diamonds, tempting my resolve. I seriously considered firing one more bluff, but opted against it and checked behind him. Matt’s turn check was clearly designed to induce a bluff, and while I didn’t think he had a flush, I didn’t think he’d give me credit for one either. He quickly turned over Jack-Nine, an indication that he was confident his top pair was good. Of course it was, and he took down a nice pot.

The dealer dealt the next hand while I reevaluated my situation. I had just lost about a million chips but still had 1.6 million to work with. With blinds of 30K and 60K, that wasn’t a fortune, but it was enough that I could still be a threat.

The very next hand I picked up AKo. Another player I knew nothing about raised to 120K from early position. I re-raised to 320K. It folded back to him, and he looked me over. “How much did you start the hand with?” he asked.

“About 1.6,” I told him, in the most deadpan voice I could muster. I don’t generally talk at all during a hand, for fear of giving away information. Since I was new to the table, my opponent didn’t know that, and I was afraid that he might take a refusal to answer for weakness.

He nodded and thought for another moment. He had over eight million chips, so while losing 1.6 would make a dent, it would hardly be devastating for him. “All in,” he said.

I said, “Call”, just as quickly and turned over my hand. There was nothing for me to think about and no need for me to stare him down or get all theatrical about it. I made up my mind to call all-in before I ever re-raised.

I was actually a little surprised to see a pair of 9s, but I think he may have assumed that I might be frustrated from the pot I just lost and re-raising him with a weaker hand than I ordinarily would. In any event, he hadn’t folded, and there was nothing I could do to determine my fate now.

This was only the second time all tournament that I’d been all-in with my own tournament life on the line. Unlike now, I was a strong though not overwhelming favorite the first time. Just like then, however, I focused all of my mental energy on maintaining my composure no matter what happened. The cameras descended, but I doubt you’ll see this hand on TV, because my only reaction when the dealer had dealt five cards without revealing an Ace or a King was to tap the table and say “Nice hand.”

The player, whom I later learned was a Russian named Audrey Pateychuk, reached out and shook my hand. Then a floorman handed me a receipt, containing the place in which I’d been eliminated and the prize I was due, that I was to take to the cashier.

On my way out of the room, I walked behind my new friend Kenny Shih at his new table. “Good luck, Kenny,” I called to him from the rail.

He looked back at me and for a moment was so absorbed in his own performance that he didn’t realize the significance of where I was standing. “Thanks!” he answered cheerfully and turned back to his table for a moment before realizing what had happened.

He turned again with a sad look at his face. I had a feeling he was about to say, “Sorry” or something like that, but I cut him off with a smile. “Good luck,” I said again, this time meaning it more sincerely than I had when I was still one of his competitors.