All In (19 page)

I looked at my cards. Pocket eights. A good hand but definitely not a great one. I glanced at my short stack. I had no choice. “I'm all in.”

The small blind folded, which was exactly what I'd wanted.

Alex Kravchenko, who'd bounced around the bottom of the chip pile with me all day long, was the next to act. He'd hit a pretty good roll of late and had a decent chip stack but not one large enough to take the risk of calling, unless of course he had a very good hand.

“I call,” Kravchenko said.

Nuts.
Not what I'd wanted to hear.
Okay, Jerry, you can survive this.

Then Alex flipped his cards. King-queen of diamonds, a
very dangerous hand. Out of the 169 possible hands in Texas Hold ‘Em, king-queen same suit is the twelfth best pocket hand. Pocket eights is the thirteenth.

I turned my cards.

Alex looked at me, smiled slightly, and said, “I didn't expect you to have a hand. I thought you were trying to steal one.”

A little earlier, I'd played a queen-three and actually hit a queen to win the hand. He thought I was playing something just as weak this time.

I didn't say anything, or if I did I was too nervous to remember.

Unlike me, Alex had a large enough stack to cover me and keep playing if he lost the hand. Furthermore, he had several ways of making a hand, and five cards were left to make it with.

I had to dodge a lot of bullets to stay alive. Out of the forty-two cards left in the deck, thirty-three would help him, and only two would help me.

“Lord, let me survive this hand,” I prayed. “Just let me survive this hand. I cannot get busted out now. I need to go on.” Inside, I also prayed,
Oh, God, if I lose, please give me the strength to go out with grace and dignity.

The flop came. Nine-six-six, one of which was a diamond. I was still alive. To make the flush, he had to hit diamonds on both the turn and the river. For the straight, he had to hit a jack and a ten. Of course, if another king or queen showed up, I was dead.

The turn hit the table. Ten of clubs. No chance for a flush, but now any face card on the river would send me and my parents
back to California. There were potentially ten face cards still looming in the deck. Ten out of thirty-nine.

I prayed harder.

The river came: a nothing card.

I took the pot and doubled my stack. More importantly, I survived.

Ten minutes later at the other table, the 1998 main event champion, Scotty Nguyen, busted out. He made a farewell speech to the crowd, but I didn't pay much attention. I had now officially made the top ten.

After a twenty-minute break, play would resume at the not-quite-final table. The ten remaining players would all take our seats at the feature table, where we would play until one player busted out. At that moment, play would stop until noon the following day. That's when the real final table would begin.

It was 2:00 a.m. on the dot. We'd been playing poker for fourteen straight hours. I heard more yawns than cheers from the spectators in the stands. I didn't dare take off my dark glasses. I knew my eyes were red, with dark circles underneath. We'd played until two in the morning on day five, which meant all of us had begun day six more than a little sleep deprived. I'd climbed out of bed earlier than usual to pick up my parents at the airport. I don't think they had any idea what they were getting themselves into.

Play began again. I was in seat four. Thanks to Alex Kravchenko doubling me up, my chip stack was now up to 6 million, good enough for seventh place. All I had to do was
finish in the top nine to live to play another day. Alex wasn't quite so lucky. He was now down to just over 2 million, the short stack, tenth place. I didn't care who busted out first; I just hoped they'd do it soon so I could go back to my hotel and get some sleep.

Another two hours went by before Steven Garfinkle finally busted out. Within the first half hour, I knew I had the final table in hand. I drew a six-five off suit in the big blind. Normally I'd fold a hand like this or limp in with it from the big blind; I'd play it only if I didn't have to put any more money into the pot to see the flop.

The first eight players to act all folded.

That left Lee Childs and me. Again. Sometimes you get lucky with a hand like a six-five off suit in the big blind, a hand with a less than 5 percent chance of winning, and everyone folds to you, giving you the blinds and antes.

I didn't get lucky.

Lee Childs raised 600,000 from the small blind. I would have to put in one-tenth of my chips to keep playing a hand with a small chance of winning. Good poker strategy says to fold, but something inside of me told me to keep playing. I called.

The flop came, ten-eight-six, all of different suits. At least I now had a pair, albeit, the smallest pair possible based on the cards on the table. If Lee had made a big bet right then or possibly gone all in, I would have folded. An aggressive raise signals a large pocket pair. He didn't make a bet. Instead, he tapped on his chips, signaling a check.

I should have pushed hard and forced him to fold. But no
one ever pushes hard with a pair of sixes when two potentially larger pairs are staring you in the face. I checked.

We both got to see the turn card for free, without risking any more of our chips. The dealer burned a card, then dealt the turn card: a four.

Lee bet 800,000. While that sounds like a lot, it really wasn't, not when you consider that it was less than half the pot size.

I stared at the cards on the table.
If Lee has a ten or an eight, I'm sunk
, I thought.
All I have is a lowly pair of sixes.
If my tournament life had been on the line, I would have folded. But I wasn't playing the cards; I was playing Lee Childs, and something about him told me he had nothing. “I call.”

The pot was now slightly over 3 million.

The river came: an ace.

Lee was the first to act. “A million and a half.”

It was what I'd been waiting for. If he'd had an ace, he would have bet at least 3 million, which would have doubled the pot and crippled me. Instead, his bet was more of a probe bet, a kind of dare to see what kind of hand I really had. With nearly 18 million in chips in front of him when this hand had begun, he could afford to throw out a measly million and a half to find out if I was bluffing.

I looked at the table. If he paired any one of the cards, he would have me beat. I looked at him. Again, something told me he didn't have an ace or a ten or an eight. I knew he didn't have anything that could hurt me. “I call.”

I turned my lowly six-five.

Lee tossed his cards toward the dealer in disgust.

As soon as he did, I knew I would make the final table. I'd played a hand I probably should have folded, but my instincts had told me to keep going.

Texas Hold 'Em is a marathon, but it's also a test of courage. From time to time, you have to play a hand you normally wouldn't, and you have to stand your ground when inside you want to fold.

I had just proved to myself I could do both. I knew I would not only survive this day but make the final table.

Two hours later, at 4:15 a.m. on Monday, sixteen hours after play had begun, Raymond Rahme knocked out Steven Garfinkle. The final table was now set. Even though I was in eighth place with a chip stack barely over one-third the size of the chip leader Phil Hilm's, I had a shot. And once the first card is dealt at the final table, anything can happen.

Once we finally made it across the Mekong and into Thailand, I knew we were safe, but that was all I knew. Where we would live or find food or water was still a mystery. To be honest, it didn't matter to me at the time. Staying in Laos would've meant certain death or worse.

Many people in the West have heard of the killing fields in Cambodia, where the Communist Khmer Rouge tortured and killed over a million people. Similar crimes were committed in Laos by the Pathet Lao, albeit on a much smaller scale, only because the population was lower. The truth is that these atrocities continue today.
⁷

The soldiers who found us on the shore of the Mekong escorted us to a makeshift camp just beyond the river. There, American Red Cross workers handed out blankets and Thai volunteers gave each of us a small bowl of rice and a piece of dried fish. Few meals in my life have ever tasted so good. I
hadn't eaten anything in a long time.

The instant I finished the meal, I asked, “Father, do you mind if I go see my friends from home?”

My father could hardly keep his eyes open. The fatigue of the past month appeared to hit him all at once. “No, Xao, go ahead, but don't get too far away.”

I took off running to a group of people who looked familiar. “Bee,” I yelled to one of my buddies, “let's play.”

I didn't have to ask him twice.

The two of us rounded up the rest of our gang. I scratched out hopscotch lines in the dirt, and we played until we grew bored with it. Then we found a piece of rope and played tug-of-war. It felt so good to act like a child again.

On my way back to my family, I noticed all the adults in the camp wore the same weary, frightened looks. We may have been safe, but no one old enough to understand the situation could relax. Every person in the camp had left the only homes we'd ever known, the only lives we'd ever imagined.

Now we were strangers in an unfamiliar country. All around us, the landscape looked basically the same as it had on the Lao side of the Mekong, yet we didn't have houses or farms or any way of making a life for ourselves. Adding to the sense of unease was the fact that most of us, unlike my father, didn't speak Thai.

The river of people pouring into the temporary camp, both Hmong and Lao, slowed when the sun rose. It started up again the moment dusk fell. Whenever a new group arrived, questions started flying both directions.

“Have you seen my son?”

“Does anyone know where my father is?”

“I can't find my aunt. Can you help me?”

Stories always followed questions.

A weeping woman cried out, “They shot my husband right in front of me as we crossed the river.”

Another told of watching friends drown in the Mekong.

Still another spoke of all the people from their village who'd died while trying to make it to the river.

The names and faces changed, but the stories were all very much the same.

New arrivals also brought news from home. Back when my village decided to flee for Thailand, one older man and his grown son had criticized my father's plan. Their families had stayed behind to take their chances with the Pathet Lao.

An acquaintance from a nearby village gave us an update. As soon as we had left, the criticizing man and his son had raided the cave vault under the waterfall. They had claimed all of our treasures, cattle, pigs, and fields. Within a matter of days, however, the Communist soldiers had executed every single member of their family.

Though these men had opposed my father so strongly, the news of their death made me very sad.

I knew if we'd stayed in Laos, none of us would have lived.

Within a day or two, the Thai government bussed us from the temporary camp to a large refugee camp at Nam Phong. Nam Phong had once been a secret Thai–United States commando training center for Hmong and Lao guerrilla fighters.
At the end of the Vietnam War, a United States Marine Aircraft Wing fighter squadron had flown missions from there.
⁸
The barracks were converted to refugee housing when the first wave of Hmong and Lao fled across the Mekong. By the time we arrived, those buildings had long since been filled.

Our bus pulled into Nam Phong about midnight. Tall poles with floodlights sprang up from every corner of the camp, illuminating the entire area.

“What is this?” I asked as we pulled up to the gate. I couldn't believe my eyes. Green tents stretched across the entire former military base. Between them, little children ran and played and adults milled about. “Doesn't anyone sleep here?”

“Don't worry about that, Xao,” my father said. “Stick close to your mother and me.”

The bus stopped, a door opened, and a Thai soldier entered, speaking words I couldn't understand.

My father had to translate for us. If I remember correctly, the soldier told us to follow him and not to touch any of the light poles because they weren't completely grounded and several people had been electrocuted when they'd accidentally run into them. “And be watchful for wild dogs,” my father translated. “They roam the outskirts of the camp during the day and try to get inside at night. They carry disease and are very dangerous.”

With its killer light poles and packs of wild dogs, this didn't sound like a safe place. I was scared.

My family stood in a long line to pick up more blankets and a few pieces of clothing from volunteers. An official-looking
man also handed my father an oversized bundle of dark green cloth, a long pole, and some stakes and rope. I hadn't seen anything like these items before, but my father knew what to do with them.

From the supply line, we made our way to the space assigned us within the Hmong section of the camp. My father and several other men worked for over an hour putting up a 30-by-20-foot tent in which five families, including ours, would spend the night.

Little did I know this tent would be our home for the next six months.

As soon as the sun came up, I took off to explore the camp with a couple of my buddies. We didn't stray far from our families, but we walked enough to get a good feel for life in our new community, which dwarfed our village in Laos. People, tens of thousands, filled every square foot of space. Like clock-work, every few hours more buses and trucks pulled in and new tents sprang up.

A walking path went straight between the endless rows of tents. Everywhere we went, we saw people walking, conversing. Some laughed; others cried. We heard people talking about lost relatives and those who had died trying to escape Laos. We couldn't escape the reality of what we'd just been through.