After the break, Dimitar went on the attack. For an hour, it worked. He saw his stack grow, almost in step with the one in front of Slim. Half the day had passed, and late registration was approaching when the two of them got it all into the middle. Dimitar had been the aggressor and had Slim well ranged from middle position when the Bulgarian moved all-in with pocket jacks. Dimitar believed he would be ahead almost 80% of the time, good enough odds to shove.
Slim called, and Dimitar asked, ‘Tens?’
‘Sorry, son. But you were right. I do the same with tens.’ Slim turned over pocket queens.
For the first time, Dimitar realized that the outcome of the hand was less important to him than the lesson – but just for a second.
The dealer, now a sandy-haired gentleman emitting the faint odor of menthol cigarettes and smooth aftershave, threw a jack up on flop, but a queen arrived on the river, and suddenly Slim had all of Dimitar’s chips.
‘This was unlucky. You must rebuy.’ Slim said, politely waiting until Dimitar left the table to rebuy.
With only a few minutes before re-entry closed, Dimitar joined the small queue back at the registration desk. He felt the cold sting of the unfortunate run-out drip down his spine. Physically shaking it off, he rebought. Walking back through to the ballroom, he passed a few stands, where some of the ship’s crew – or sellers who had made the trip to hustle their livings – were selling accessories to the action. Everyone was offering something from phone chargers to seat pillows, portable neck massagers to loyalty cards that promised free drinks at the bar or $10 for the slot machines. Dimitar stopped at the stall selling phone accessories and bought a cheap pair of in-ear headphones.
This time, he was seated on the other side of the ballroom, Slim and his former table were not visible through the throng of people. There must have been hundreds of people playing on the cruise. Dimitar sat down, and an unfamiliar dealer welcomed him, exchanging his re-entry ticket for a new stack of chips. From being two cards away from 120 big blinds, Dimitar was now €10,000 down for the day, had a stack worth less than 25 bigs, and there were still six hours to go before the day was over.
Dimitar knew nobody at his table. He put on some background music that would keep him calm but engaged. No lyrics to distract him, only the persistent thrum of guitars and drums. Every pot, he seemed to focus more on the cards. The first hand, he lost with a straight draw that didn’t come in, but he managed to lose the minimum, and he focused only on his play. He concentrated on the action. He watched every player at showdown, both the cards and their expressions – especially if they didn’t reveal their cards. The registration period ended without Dimitar noticing, and then, what felt like just moments later, the bell sounded for the dinner break before he knew it. He’d met with Slim, discussed hands a little, but mostly listened to the older man, trying to learn as much as he could about tells, both his own and those revealed by other people.
The evening session left three hours to the finish of the night, but when the announcement rang around the room of ‘three more hands,’ Dimitar didn’t congratulate himself on still being in his seat. He thought, ‘those are three more hands I can win’. And he did. A flush over flush earned him a big knockout. A dominating ace took out a short stack who had chosen the wrong time to go big or go home. For the final hand of the night, Dimitar four-bet pre-flop with eight-four offsuit because his opponent looked ready to leave. He was rewarded with a fold and tossed his cards face-down into the muck with a neat flick of the wrist.
‘Good aim,’ said Simone, who had rejoined Dimitar’s table only a few minutes before the end of play.
Six hours after losing all of his chips, Dimitar had the second largest stack in the room. The bar was busy, with players either congratulating each other on being one of the 113 survivors to day 2 or commiserating with those who hadn’t. That or drowning their own sorrows.
‘Well done, young man. You ended the day with more chips than me. You’ll be in the write-up.’
‘Write-up?..’
‘The report. The overnight report will say your name. Second in chips?’
‘Third, I think,’ said Dimitar, knowing that if Serf knew where he was, he’d be reading that report. ‘A good Russian player was at my table, and I passed his stack on the way to the bar. He looked like he had more than me.’
‘Still, third of just over a hundred. I’m not even in the top 10.’
‘Will you two stop? Said Simone. ‘Isn’t 12 hours of poker enough for you?’
Then, lowering her voice, she said, ‘Do you want this manifest or not?’
Dimitar looked at Simone’s screen as she held it up to face him.
‘Can you send it to me?’ he asked. She took his number and sent the images across. There were a lot of names.’
‘I’ll need to look through these names.
‘And I think it’s time I slept,’ said Slim.
They both bade ‘Slim’ McCoy a farewell as he strutted off towards the lift and the accommodation deck.
Simone invited Dimitar back to her room, and the two of them pored through the names for almost an hour, opening Simone’s tablet and using two notepads from the office to write notes about the passengers of The Ambassador. They spread dozens of pages across the bed.
Simone’s recall of meeting people on the ship was phenomenal. No one was on the ship with the name Elena other than a five-year-old girl holidaying with her parents. No one was named Serf either, and the only Peter on the ship was an 87-year-old man who was on his third cruise of the year with his wife. Passengers could register with false names, but after an hour of consideration, it was Simone who spoke.
‘They’re not on board.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘I don’t know. It’s just a feeling but you can trust me. I’ve seen so many people walking up and down this ship. They must be going to Marseille another way.’
‘Then all I have to focus on is the money,’ said Dimitar, rising from the bed.
Simone looked up at him and rose alongside him, slipping next to his body.
‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘You don’t need to think about anything tonight.’
About the Author: Paul Seaton has written about poker for over 10 years, interviewing some of the best players ever to play the game such as Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth. Over the years, Paul has reported live from tournaments such as the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and the European Poker Tour. He has also written for other poker brands where he was Head of Media, as well as BLUFF magazine, where he was Editor.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.