Diego

The writer encounters a contractor at the poker tables.

Photo by Theme Photos on Unsplash

The other day while playing poker I met a contractor who I’ll call Diego (not his real name).

At the poker room I frequent, there are a lot of “regs,” or regular players who are there seemingly all the time. They know the staff by name and vice versa. Many of them at this particular room are younger (e.g. 30s and 40s), so I suspect they play for a living. But as a result, it’s easy to tell the difference between a reg and a visiting, recreational player (or “rec”). I’d never seen Diego before, so he was probably visiting the poker room for the first time.

Diego was a tall handsome Black man in his late 40s or 50s wearing a Carhartt jacket. When I showed up at that day at around 5:30 a.m. and it was clear that Diego has already been there for hours. Diego was what I’d call a Loose Aggressive player (also referred to as LAG). He would almost always call preflop and often blast an overbet on the flop or turn.

As 5:30 a.m. turned to dawn turned to 8 a.m., it became clear that Diego had some commitments that day. He shared about how he had a contractor job that morning where a massive house needed to be painted. He didn’t have to paint the house but he needed to show up with all the paint at a specific time. Everyone at the job was depending on him. But he was going to be late.

Diego probably had around a $2500 stack when I showed up (the max buy-in at the table is $1000), which had dwindled down to $1000. At that point, I ended up in a 3-way all-in against him where I hit a flush against Diego’s two-pair and another player’s straight. This took him down to around $500.

As time went on, things became more and more uncomfortable. Diego’s phone started blowing up. It was clear he was literally supposed to be somewhere right now but he was continuing to stay and play. At one point, he stepped away from the table to take a very lengthy phone call (presumably from an angry employer/co-worker), then came back and resumed playing like nothing was happening. Diego was down hundreds of dollars and he was not going to leave until he ran his stack up high or left with nothing.

The poker room is a stultifying environment because you can’t provide practical advice for people. If I could, I would’ve probably said to Diego, “Hey man, it seems like you gotta go. Why not step away now while you still have a few chips?” But if I did, I’d risk angering the rest of the poker table, who probably see easy money seated in front of them, and potentially Diego himself, who doesn’t want his judgment questioned. As a player, all I can do is watch silently as the unfortunate situation plays out.

Eventually, Diego decides to go all in against a player who has pocket Kings and gets knocked out. He finally decides to step away from the table. He says goodbye to several of the players who he’s been battling with for hours, then vanishes. For many of us, it’s a relief. There is a palpable lessening of tension as Diego’s energy and desperation is gone. Who knows if he’ll ever be back.

The player to my left turns to me and says, contemplatively, “You know, Diego now has me questioning every time a contractor has showed up late to my house.”