Just trying VI.

Playing poker: it was a long time ago. I could remember those nights spent at that secret club in the northern part of the town, inside that old chemical factory which was deactivated due an accident in the seventy’s. Someone in white clothes had forgotten about cleaning his shoes when he left a very infected laboratory. A harmful element has been spread throughout the rooms. No one could escape. The disease caused by that element made everybody lay down at the same time the particles were inspired. Workers had spit on the floor solid blood. Walking through the aero glass tunnel whereby we get pass to the attic of the great building, we could see the dried blood spots on the ground down there. I was afraid at first, but then I get used to the scene. On the attic, a secret club of poker players consisting in rich old men, crime chiefs and young guys who were all trying to make easy cash. I was one of the younger.

I did not start playing poker on that secret community. I was introduced to the game by a movie of the ninety’s, called Maverick, who was played by Mel Gibson. He was young and his character was a cheater and the whole plot turns around everyone cheating everybody. The poker shows up in the near end, when a great championship was played inside a vessel, while it navigates.

I was already living alone when I watched the movie. So I searched the web to learn about everything of the game. A card game about bluffing and controlling your opponent: I was crazy about mind control and all this stuff those times. In the websites, I found out that it could be played on the computer, through a software who deals the cards and could do all the hard work. I started to play with people from every point of the world and, slowly, I learned the tricks and I became a good player.

Since I realized that, I started to play with real money. I had to make my first credit card and deposit some cash into the site. Weeks later, I was staying awake all night, earning money from the game.

I met some girls and was very social, but still was playing. I’ve earned lots of money and could live easy without having to work anymore. I was on top. Then, I met the woman who I really loved. Her name was Claudia and I met her at my favorite bar: the Rock and Roll Bar. I paid her some drinks and we talked a lot. I felt in love. I thought her did, too.

We dated for one year and a half. She knew about my job and didn’t like that. She said that it was like cheating, I should work like everyone, I should be honest like everyone. She was a old-minded girl who I started to think came from a remote farm or anywhere like that. She just could not understand. However, we started to live together, but only after I join the college, studying math. The problem was that I had been playing on the secret club in the factory already, looking for bigger pots. I went there about three nights per week, and was always winning. I just could not explain that, she refuses to understand that was my work. She became jealous and started to insinuate I was cheating her those nights. Finally, she left me. I cried a lot and stopped with poker – the game ruined my life.

She had never accepted me back. I never played poker again. Until there. The game that ruined my life was going to be the same that will decide my fate.

To be continued.