PART 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)
The following is a true story about a real person. Some names have been altered to protect those involved.
When we last left Paul Chapel, he had recently been left by his fiancé on their third anniversary and he was stuck in a job he hated. The play of his Browns and Buckeyes began to mimic his poker game; by losing every week. Paul was not in a good place.
In life, a man can only be pushed so far before he can't take it anymore. It's at this point where a man finds out what he is truly made of and what he is really capable of doing. It's at this point where a man must decide if he has the testicular fortitude to push back or if he is just going to retreat back into the shadows of life.
Those who knew Paul Chapel, and even those who had once heard of him or had seen him from afar, would've classified him in the latter group; the group of people who would much rather flee from the fight than put everything on the line to stay and see how the chips fall. However, it turned out that Chapel was part of group one ... Paul was going to push back.
Shortly after his separation, one of Chapel's friends, Adam, informed him of a huge poker tournament that was taking place in several weeks. Adam had benefited the most financially from Chapel's poker playing, so it was only natural that he would convince Paul to play. Normally, Paul would balk at a game that had so many poker veterans, but he was no longer the Chapel that would go down without a fight.
Paul knew that he was going to have to do something drastic if he was going to have any shot at fairing well in the upcoming tournament. He needed a whole new style and a whole new game. Chapel's game was fine for playing at church festivals and with people who didn't know how to play poker, but he would be slaughtered in a game with real players.
Paul started by playing as much as he could. Every night during the week before the tournament, Chapel played poker. He went nowhere without a deck of cards, trying to learn percentages and to get a feel for how the cards were treating him. He would play online and with his dad, with his cousins, and even with Adam, who continued to mop the floor with Chapel. Still, something was missing.
The night before the tournament Paul was sitting on his balcony and reflecting on his life. He thought of his ailing Buckeyes and Browns, he agonized over the locked-out NHL. He tried not to think of his job and eventually his thoughts drifted to his ex-fiancé and her new life with her marijuana farmer. His despair turned to determination as his attention turned to the next day's poker tournament.
Paul had to escape his stench of losing. He recalled a line from a movie where someone said that you should never play cards with someone whose first name is a state. He started thinking, and before long, he had an entirely new persona. He donned a cowboy hat, found the perfect pair of dark sunglasses, and topped it off by lighting up one of his favorite cigars, a Macanudo White Label Prince Philip. The poker players he knew in the tournament were expecting Paul Chapel to show up the next day. Instead, they would meet Montana Pete.
Not many took notice as Chapel entered the unfinished house in suburban Ohio. The only pieces of furniture in the entire place were game tables and chairs. When several players asked him who he was, he simply replied, "Montana Pete." They laughed and walked away, but Montana Pete didn't care. He wasn't there to make friends; he was there to win.
Chapel quickly found himself in trouble in his first game, but a series of poor bluffs by the chip leader at the table combined with a few lucky hands by Paul to make Montana Pete the new chip leader. Paul's old, conservative style quickly clashed with the dangerous play of Montana Pete and left Chapel confused on many hands. A few bad decisions by the other players, a successful bluff here and there, the play of Montana Pete, and finally, an unusual amount of blind luck, landed Chapel at the final table.
Paul saw a familiar face at the final table in his friend Adam, who couldn't believe that the timid, unconfident poker player he once knew was now at the final table in the biggest tournament he had ever played in. As Chapel introduced himself as Montana Pete to the others at the table, Adam laughed and began introducing himself as "Albany Glen." Montana didn't even look up; he simply lit another of his Macanudo White Label Prince Philip cigars. He was ready to play cards.
After Chapel won the first hand, he was quickly intimidated by the big-timers at the table and his conservative nature won out. Nearly an hour went by without Paul winning a single hand and he was down to the second smallest stack of chips at the table. Chapel began to panic as the images of his recent troubles in life flooded his head. As cards were being dealt, he couldn't take his mind off of Cherie and her marijuana farmer. He couldn't stop thinking about his job and about how nothing had gone right for him lately. Even this little poker charade, along with his stack of chips, was beginning to disappear before his eyes.
He stared intently at his King-Five, unsure of what to do. A five came up on the flop and Chapel had planned to play it safe, but Montana Pete threw caution to the wind and went all-in, drawing five other players into the hand, as well. One of the big-dogs at the table paired the five, but only had a ten kicking. No one else paired anything. As players stared in disbelief at Montana, the only thing to escape his mouth was a puff of smoke from his Prince Phillip cigar.
Montana surgically knocked out the two weakest players at the table within the next five hands. After staying out of a few hands, Montana was dealt a Jack-Seven. A man called Bob, mainly because no one knew his real name, immediately went all-in. The next three players decided to fold before Adam stared into Bob's soul and then decided he wanted to go all-in. Montana Pete, with his J-7, called.
The flop produced a two, three, and eight, helping no one. As everyone flipped their cards before the turn, Chapel experienced a feeling he knew too well from life, the feeling that his hand was lost, as he saw Bob had an Ace-Queen and Adam had an even better Ace-King. The turn was a meaningless four. Paul pulled his cowboy hat down over his sunglasses and embraced for his inevitable, imminent defeat.
The river was a seven.
As Bob cursed and pounded the wall with his fist and Adam looked longingly at the stack of his former chips, Montana Pete merely leaned back in his chair, the joy and exhilaration of finally vanquishing his life-long poker nemesis hidden behind his cowboy hat and dark sunglasses. Paul's anxiety at being so close to what could be his biggest victory in recent memory quickly gave way to Montana Pete's calm confidence.
Montana pulled two of the last three players at the table all-in over the next three hands and summarily disposed of them. As he collected his new chips from the center of the table, the next hand was dealt. The other player looked at his cards and then at Montana Pete, who was too preoccupied with stacking and organizing his chips to even glance at his hand.
As Montana finished assembling his newfound wealth, he still didn't reach for his hand. Instead, Montana Pete took his Macanudo White Label Prince Philip cigar from his mouth, blowing a cloud of smoke into the air, and removed his sunglasses. He looked up at the only other player left at the table and, for the first time in weeks, he smiled. He stared a hole into the man sitting across from him and grinned ear to ear, knowing that it was only a matter of time before things would turn around for him, knowing that it was only a matter of time before he would be a champion.
The other player threw his cards down, pushed his chair away from the table, and stood. Paul Chapel had finally won.
In the days and weeks after the epic game, Paul's life began to turn around. His ex-fiancé came crawling back to him, complaining of the male inadequacies of her new farmer, but Paul sent her away. He actually started to have success with other girls and even caught a few breaks with his job. Things weren't perfect, but he had a new outlook on life.
Every now and then, when he is feeling down, needs a financial booster shot, or just when he wants to exert his dominance, he dons his cowboy hat and dark sunglasses, lights up his Macanudo White Label Prince Philip cigar ... and he plays cards.
Mark Chalifoux is also a weekly columnist for SportsFan Magazine. His columns appear every Tuesday on Sports Central. You can e-mail Mark at [email protected].
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