Poker gems, #33

Jesse May, Shut Up and Deal, p. 162-163:

I’m a watcher. Always have been. Maybe that’s why I learned. I love to watch people, love to stare at ‘em behind my dark shades as they load up racks with new-found dollars and walk away. Or as they fall apart, as they crumple up, as their eyes become big and glassy and lose focus and they take deep drags on their cigarettes. As they come in all smiles and how ya doing and start winning and talk about how good they are and how they could have made an extra bet by checking the flop, and then a month later they’re stuck on the rail trying to borrow money from the same guys they called losers a little while before. I just watch. Don’t say nothing. Nothing. Just sit there and watch 'em night after night with a big silly grin on my face as they call me a live one.