Poker is my game. And I no longer play. Can’t sit that long anymore.
Played poker because I love to compete. Love to win. Hate losing.
Poker is more than a game, it’s an education. Lot like distance running.
Lot like life.
Duhamel – who later admitted he made a bad read – tabled Jh Jc, while Affleck turned over Ac As.
Watching, I wondered if Duhamel should’ve played the hand differently. But was he ever getting away from a pair of jacks? In that situation? Against such an aggro player like “mcmatto”?
Just one card away from the tournament chip lead, a stone-cold lock for the November Nine, Affleck was approximately a 4-1 favorite to capture a pot worth 41,710,000.
He just needed to avoid ten outs. Just ten. 10.
“All I was saying in my head was ‘red deuce, red deuce, red deuce,” Matt recalled. A minute or more passed, far, far, far slower than seems reasonable, as ESPN got their cameras in place.
Eventually, the red river card hit the green felt. Affleck, who had lost his glasses the night before, tried to make out the number of spots on the card.
“I squinted, hoping for 9 spots…. ‘Shit’,” Affleck recounted. “‘Oh, my God. Did that just happen? It feels like my heart got ripped out.”
That last river card was an 8, giving Duhamel a straight.
Duhamel’s suck-out took down the pot and he was now the overwhelming chip leader with 51,000,000. Which almost seemed somehow less important. Matt Affleck was the story. Affleck was gone.
“I was stunned,” Matt concedes. “I was speechless.” He buried his face in his hands, elbows on the table’s edge. He stood and covered his face with his ball cap. “Everyone in the crowd was like sad for me.”
Stifling away tears, the young man made his exit. His Mariner jersey – Griffey #24 – fading.
“I was trying to hold it back, stay composed,” he said. “I thought I held it together pretty well.”
Just into the hallway, he slammed a water bottle to the carpet and then leaned against a wall, as if to hold himself up against the weight of that river card. “I was obviously pretty pissed off, not in a good mood.”
As Affleck is fighting back the anguish, “some guy comes up to me with a hat and a pen and asks for my autograph. My first autograph request.”
The glare of celebrity can be like that. “I wasn’t too happy ESPN followed me into the hallway,” Matt says.
Watching on TV, I was happy about it, because – five minutes or so later – the cameras followed Affleck back into the tournament scene. Where he exchanged heartfelt handshakes and hugs with his competitors. After losing a hand “worth $3-4 million in equity,” Affleck estimates.
This is the way a man handles a bad beat. Waves of applause were offered from an appreciative crowd. A “bad beat” doesn’t begin to describe it. More applause – warm, respectful – followed him back out of the room.
Up in the room, there are no cameras. Affleck says after an hour, a double Jager bomb and a light beer, he was feeling better.
Still better a week later, after a week away from the game. “Everything happens for a reason,” Mr. Matt Affleck suggests, “so maybe it’s for the best. The positive I have taken away from this… I have proven to the world – especially my parents – I can do this. I am really motivated. I am excited to play again.
I cannot imagine any young man has ever been less happy about winning $500,165. And yet?
And yet, what did he teach us? He taught us…
If you want to be first, you have to willing to lose in 15th.
Ask for the card you want to see on the river.
The camera is always on you. And, even if it isn’t, act like it is.
Sometimes, a couple of stiff drinks can help.
It’s not just what happens, but how you deal with what happens that matters.
Calling your parents on the break doesn’t make you any less of a man. Quite the contrary.
A week away from the table can make you stronger at it.
“The most soul-crushing moment of the summer” is not the end of the world.
Sign the guy’s hat.