Poker gems, #34

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

Player asks, How’s my game, man, my game? Your game? Who gives a fuck about your game, I want to know what you’re gonna do when they’re fuckin’ breathing down your neck they got you hooked so good and you’re so scared you’re praying you ain’t got a pair when you look down at those hole cards because Krock he just raised again with a queen up, and even though you know he’s got shit, you know it, man, I could fuckin’ swear it down to my bones. If I look down and see a pair of sickly eights my stomach is just turning, 'cause I don’t want to get there in no pot with him, where the river card is a big black snake and fate has already decided which cards are in that deck and which order they come out and odds in my favor has much less meaning to me than the pain in my stomach that feels like the lining is getting eaten away by acid—at least that feels real. I don’t know how the odds feel.