All In (23 page)

After packing my bags, I took one last look around my room. “Thank you,” I said to the empty space. “You kept me focused. I don't think I could have made it this far without you.”

I arrived at the Amazon Room in time for the noon joint press
conference with all of the final table contestants. Then each of us rotated through several different media rooms for one-on-one interviews with ESPN,
USA TODAY
, local Las Vegas television stations, and foreign press.

Even though I was an amateur, the press had lots of questions for me. Usually, the question came down to a variation of this: “Jerry, amateur players have won the past four World Series of Poker main events in a row. Can you be the fifth?”

I always gave the same answer: “I have a great deal of respect for the pros. Tomorrow I will do my best and hope the cards fall my way.”

What else could I say?

After answering the last question, I went upstairs to the two-bedroom suite I'd rented for my parents. The moment I opened the door, my six children rushed at me.

“Daddy,” they yelled, each one grabbing me.

I loved every second of it. I gave out hugs and kisses and more hugs and kisses. My two youngest children would barely let go.

Sue stood back, letting the children have their time.

“Kids, did Mommy tell you I made the final table?”

“You did?” my oldest daughter asked with that hint of sarcasm only a thirteen-year-old girl can muster.

I laughed so hard. “Of course. Why do you think you're here?”

I finally waded through the sea of our children and made it to my wife to wrap my arms around her. “Mommy, this is real. This is happening. In less than twenty-four hours, I'll play the final table.” My emotions spilled out; I couldn't hold
back the tears any longer.

“I know.” Tears streamed down her face.

We stayed like that for a few minutes, holding one another, crying, while our children darted in and out around us.

Finally, Sue stood back. “And how much money does this mean you will win?”

I laughed so hard I could hardly answer.

Even though my family was now with me, I had to be alone for a while to plot my strategy for the next day. Of the eight other players remaining, I regarded three as the most dangerous: Philip Hilm, Lee Watkinson, and Alex Kravchenko.

Philip not only had the chip lead; he also was a fearless player.

I knew how good Lee Watkinson was because I'd watched him on television. Most of the poker experts regarded him as the best contender at the final table.

Even though Alex Kravchenko had the short stack, I knew firsthand how dangerous he could be. He'd been the short stack through most of day six, yet he'd survived. Of my eight opponents, he was perhaps the most disciplined, the most patient, and the hardest to eliminate.

As I prepared for the final table, I believed I had to take out these three to have any chance at winning. I mean no disrespect to the others; in fact, I think most of them would name the same three as their toughest opponents. Certainly, no one would have put Jerry Yang on that list.

In the previous two years, I'd watched and rewatched many professional players, including Lee Watkinson, on television
and made careful notes. On days five and six here, I'd started taking notes on the players as well. The night before the final table, I'd pulled out my notes one last time and studied.

Unless the other players had snuck into the Pechanga or Lake Elsinore casinos and watched me in my local weekend tournaments, they didn't have any notes on me beyond their observations during the World Series of Poker.

I'd played at the same table as some of them, giving them a read on me and vice versa. However, one's style of play and approach to the game are different at the final table than they are in the earlier rounds.

The fact that I'd watched Lee Watkinson play final tables on television gave me just a little more information about him than he had on me. And when it comes to Texas Hold 'Em, sometimes a little extra information can make all the difference.

I didn't sleep much better the night before the biggest day of poker of my life. The children spread sleeping bags out across the suite's living room. One or two may have crawled between my parents in their bed.

Sue and I managed to keep everyone out of our room. It was our first chance to really talk since I'd come to Las Vegas twelve days earlier. For most of the night, we talked about how our lives were about to change.

“Mommy, no matter what happens, you'll be able to be a stay-at-home mom just like you've always wanted. Even if I'm the first one out, we'll be able to pay off everything and live on my salary alone.”

I cannot tell you how long I'd dreamed of being able to make that happen.

I also talked poker strategy, which she didn't understand, but that didn't matter. It helped me just to have her listen.

Sue caught me up on everything that had taken place at home since I'd left for Vegas. With six children, there's always something happening in our house.

We discussed who we wanted to keep the children while I played poker the next day. I needed Sue in the Amazon Room with me. Most of our extended family either had already arrived or were on their way to Las Vegas. We had plenty of babysitters to choose from.

And we talked about giving one-tenth of whatever I won to a very good cause. Both of us knew we must use the money for something bigger than ourselves.

Sue and I talked and talked some more. We'd been apart too long. Both of us eventually drifted to sleep in the middle of our conversation.

Before I knew it, the alarm rang. Six o'clock had come so quickly.

Even before my feet hit the floor, the adrenaline was pumping. Perhaps I should have been more nervous. A queasy feeling hit me, but I also felt incredibly calm as I contemplated the day ahead.

No one ever anticipated I'd come so far. No matter what happened, I was already a winner. Yet I knew in my heart of hearts I didn't want to settle for ninth place any more than
I'd wanted to settle for the experience of having played in the World Series of Poker on day one.

“Mommy, I truly believe I can win this thing. I think I can do it.”

“I know you can, Daddy. I
know
you can.” She gave me a look, one different from the one she'd shot across the room two short years earlier. I could see in her eyes she truly believed what she said. I was ready, not merely to play but to win.

The bus ride from Ban Vinai to Bangkok turned out to be less fairy tale and more like the life we Yangs had come to expect. About halfway there, the bus in front of us braked for a narrow bridge. I don't know if our driver wasn't paying attention or if he simply wasn't looking at that moment, but he didn't slow down and our bus slammed into the one ahead. No one was hurt, but the force of the collision knocked out our windshield.

Not long after that, a heavy rain began to fall. Since we were on the front row, my brother and I rode the rest of the way with the wind and rain blowing over us. By the time we finally arrived in Bangkok, both of us were on the verge of getting sick.

My father didn't want to take the chance of a cold delaying our trip the rest of the way to the United States, so once we settled into the dorm-like room in Bangkok, he pulled out a needle and said, “Xao, Xay, come over here and lie down.”

I knew what he was going to do: a traditional Hmong healing technique that I hated, though it always seemed to work.

My father had each of us sit on the floor next to a warm bowl of water. He dipped his hands in, clapped them, then pushed on our stomachs and out toward our arms. Back and forth he went, from the stomach to the arm, pushing the bad blood away from the core of the body. He then tied a string around each wrist and applied pressure up each finger. Finally, once all the bad blood was concentrated in the tips of our fingers, with a needle he poked below each fingernail and squeezed the blood out. Once all the bad blood was out, he dipped our fingers into the warm water. Finally, he scraped off the top layer of each nail with a knife and sent us to bed. I don't know how one might explain it medically, but the procedure made me feel a lot better.

This was not the last time I was poked with a needle while in Bangkok. For the next three days, teams of doctors and nurses poked and prodded and peeked into every part of my body. Even though the medical staff at Ban Vinai had given us many immunizations through the years, apparently the United States required even more. My arm felt like a pincushion. They also ran tests on us to make sure we didn't have diseases like TB or worms.

The day of testing lasted forever. To make matters worse, they didn't allow us to eat until they were finished.

Oh, I was so hungry.
Just think, Xao, soon you'll land in America and have all the food you want.

On our third day in Bangkok, a bus pulled up in front of
our dormitory.

“This is it,” my father told us. “We're going to the airport to get on an airplane for America.”

I'd never seen a plane up close. The nearest I'd ever come was watching the MiG fighters buzz over our village in Laos.

From the outside, the airport looked like all the other buildings we'd been herded in and out of the past few days. The Thai officials led us through the ticketing area and security as a group, then into a room to wait. For three days we'd played a variation of this game, moving from room to room, waiting to be told what to do.

After about an hour, our hosts herded us through a long hallway into another room with small, round windows and rows of three chairs on each side and of another five or six in the middle.

Our escort seated us in the middle section, which meant I couldn't see out the window. The chair, however, was quite comfortable, much more so than those in all the other waiting areas.

Voices came through the intercom, but I didn't know what they were talking about. A short time later, my chair began to rock just a little. The windows were too small for me to really view much, but it looked like we were moving.

A nice woman in a uniform said in Thai, “Please buckle your seat belts.”

“What?”

She reached down, pulled the belts from both sides of my seat, and buckled them together.

I thanked her, then said, “Is this room moving?”

She smiled. “Why, yes, it is. The pilot just pulled away from the gate. We should be in the air soon.”

“This is the airplane?”

“Yes, of course.” She left to assist other passengers.

I wanted to run to the window to see what was really happening, but I couldn't because of the seat belt. The plane made a rumbling, and I found myself pressed against my seat. Finally, the shaking stopped and the noise around me changed.

“Are we flying?” I asked my father.

“Yes, Xao, we are flying.” He laughed.

A short time later, a bell dinged.

“You can get up now,” my father said to me and my brothers.

Most of the seats on either side of us were empty. My brothers and I jumped up and rushed to a nearby window.

“Wow,” Xay said, “can you believe this? We're on top of the clouds.”

I laughed. “I know. I never dreamed you could look down on the clouds. This is so cool.”

We stared out that window forever. Well, until the flight attendants came with food. I didn't want to miss out on the food!

I know people used to complain about airplane food, back when airlines still served meals, but to me as a twelve-year-old boy who'd spent his entire life hungry, eating half-rotten food in a refugee camp for years, airplane food was gourmet dining at its best.

Still, something on my plate didn't look edible. It was red but clear, and it jiggled with the rocking of the plane.

When the flight attendant came by, I asked, “What is this?”

“Jell-O.”

“Is it food? I don't think I should eat it.”

She laughed. “Oh, yes, it's food. Try it. I think you'll like it.”

I scooped up a little on my spoon. It looked even stranger close up. I sniffed it.
Hmmm, it smells kind of fruity.
Then I tasted it.
Oh my. Where has this been all my life? I love this Jell-O stuff.

To wash everything down, I had a small brown carton with some liquid in it. I was reluctant to try it and had no idea how to open it.

On her next pass through the cabin, the flight attendant noticed my hesitation. “It's okay. Here, let me open it for you.”

As with the Jell-O, I sniffed the drink first. Then I took a swig. “Wow, what do you call this stuff?”

“Chocolate milk.”

“It feels like a party in my mouth.” I nudged my brother. “Xay, this is it. We're going to eat like this from now on. If this is how they eat there, I think I'm going to enjoy America.”

My brother's mouth was half full of Jell-O. “Meeeee tooooooooo.”

Our flight from Bangkok to San Francisco lasted over seventeen hours. Thankfully, with so few passengers on board, my brothers and I were able to stretch out on the seats and sleep.

A few hours into the flight, I needed to go to the bathroom. My oldest brother had gone earlier, so I asked him, “Where's the bathroom?”

“Down this aisle toward the back. It's a little room. You will see it.”

I found it all right, but when I walked in and closed the door, I wasn't sure what to do. The hole was up off the ground, and the board covering it didn't look stable.
This doesn't make a lot of sense,
I thought.

This was the first of many culture shocks awaiting me.

The plane felt as if it was slowing when the pilot's voice came through the intercom to announce in Thai that we would soon land in San Francisco. My brothers and I pressed our faces against the window and looked at the most glorious sight I'd ever seen. The Bible book of Revelation describes heaven as a city with streets of gold. Looking down on the Golden Gate Bridge and the Transamerica Pyramid, along with the brilliant green grass and the rolling hills leading to the bay below, I thought this had to be what the Bible had in mind.