The odds of a Poker Hand

It's a great generalization to know boarders weren’t meant to be very bright, apparently. We played football, and could hit a ball hard, but most of us pretty much knew the odds of a poker hand. We knew the likelihood of the next card coming down in a 21 or blackjack. Why? Because gambling was rife in the boarding house. We even had our own gambling den, which was quite spectacular until it got busted by Stinger in our final year of boarding.

Anyhow, the most interesting story in my gambling career at boarding school was my exposure to this fella from the North East, or rather, middle Asia. His father had a lot of money and maybe participated in some, I don’t know, interesting activities. He used to send his son hundreds of thousands of dollars every month to basically go to the races or take them to West Point Casino, which was less than 400 meters away from the boarding house.

I remember this one fine day—or night, rather. Let’s call him Joseph Tau. Joseph took me and a group of others, and we snuck out of the boarding house about 1 AM. For some reason, I remember the jumper I was wearing was one I’d borrowed from this guy Raj. It had this red covering with strange little patterns—certainly the sort of thing that brings attention to you because it was so ridiculous. I was all of 5 foot 6, 64 kilos, and looked closer to 12 than 18. Now, I’m 15, going to a casino. We had a few other boys, led by Joseph. Even though we were in grade 10, he was maybe already 18 or 19, maybe even 20. Who knows. But a lot older than us. We get there, and he hands us a brick each. So I get a brick of cash. He basically points me to one of the larger blackjack tables, and I take one of the middle seats. Here I am, 15, and somehow the security back in those days didn’t seem to worry about it. Let me repeat: I was pretty small.

Anyhow, I’m sitting at the table with a lot of chips. If you’ve ever heard of the term hot hands, well, this night I had the devil’s hands. I tell you, I was on fire. No matter what I threw down, it came out. Chips were piling up, and the table was surrounded by people because I was lucky. People started betting over the top of me. It wasn’t just me; there were two others at the table, these two Asian guys, and they were winning and winning.

Then I heard the voice. It was like when God first let light into the universe: "Let there be light!" And this arm leans over, betting on my cards. This voice from behind—I knew it could be only one person. Only one person I’d ever known had a voice that deep. It was Mr. Horton, the chemistry teacher from the school.

Mr. Horton was a very tall man with fiery red hair and a fiery red beard. I could hear that voice directly behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the red. And I’m like, Oh no but in much less polite terms. So I’m staring straight ahead. You got to remember, at this stage, I’m 15. I’ve got maybe $27,000 worth of chips in front of me. I’ve been gambling; there are people around me. Standing behind me is the school chemistry teacher. If he realizes it’s me, I’m so, so expelled. I’d have to explain to my parents I’d been possibly laundering money at the West Point Casino at the age of 15.

Anyhow, a few hands pass. The towering teacher was placing secondary bets on my hands, literally leaning over his shoulder to place chips.

Then I notice the red-haired hand grab his pile of chips and stand up and walk away. I wait maybe 10 or 15 minutes, then cash in my winnings. I sneak back into the boarding house at 4:45 in the morning. I think I finally fell asleep, ready for the 6 AM bell. A successful night out on the town.

This was the first day I realised my Super Power, I am lucky, the greatest super power of them all.