All In (29 page)

I was overwhelmed. How I would pay for everything else, I didn't know, but I figured I could find a way.

That's when Pastor Ishii surprised me with another bit of news: Mrs. Einhart had offered me a job on the janitorial staff at her nursing home.

Two days later, I finally got to meet the woman who had offered to do something so nice for me.

Mrs. Einhart sat me down. “Jerry, I will do this for you but only on one condition.”

“Yes, ma'am?” I had no idea what she'd say next.

“I will help pay your tuition if you give me your word that someday, when you are able, you will show the same kindness to others that I have shown to you.”

“Oh, yes, ma'am. I would be honored to do that. I give you my word. I will.”

With tuition and book money covered, I only needed transportation.

I talked to my family, and my uncle made me an offer. This was the same uncle who had picked us up at the airport in Nashville. He now lived in Fresno with his family as well.

“Xao, I want you to use my car. You'll have to pay for the insurance and gas, but that's it. It's yours for as long as you need
it. Once you're through with it, just give it back.”

With that, he handed me the keys to the little brown Datsun station wagon, the very one he'd used to pick us up from the airport when we'd arrived in America five years before.

What more could a young man have asked for?

The next two years, I got up every morning at two o'clock. I worked from three until half past seven sweeping and mopping and vacuuming at Mrs. Einhart's nursing home. After work, I quickly showered, dressed, and drove to school. In the afternoon, I studied and studied. I went to bed by nine o'clock and started the whole thing again early the next morning.

Occasionally I helped out at my father's farm, but he didn't want me there during the school year.

“Go study, Xao. Concentrate on your schoolwork. That's more important than this.”

Needless to say, I didn't have much of a social life my last two years of high school. In the end, it was worth it. Not only did I graduate, but I finished at the top of my class.

The day I went to tell my father I was named valedictorian, I could hardly get the words out. “Father, when we came to America, I didn't know a word of English. I struggled early on. But you taught me to work hard, and I have. I did anything and everything I could to become a better student, and it paid off. Father, I will graduate number one in my class, the top student, the valedictorian.” My tears poured down.

My father couldn't help himself and cried as well. He
wrapped his arms around me and said, “Son, you have done very well. I am proud of you.”

That, more than anything, was my ultimate goal.

After high school, I would go on to Pacific Union College on a full scholarship. The day I told my father I was planning to major in biology and go on to medical school, he nearly burst with pride. When I graduated from high school, he slaughtered a pig and held a giant celebration. The day I graduated from college, he slaughtered a bull and threw an even bigger party.

I was accepted to eight different medical schools, finally deciding on Loma Linda in Southern California. After working so hard through both high school and college, though, I was more than a little burned out.

I deferred medical school one year and took master's level classes at Loma Linda in health psychology. The only reason I'd wanted to be a doctor was to help people in places like the ones where I'd grown up. I discovered I could do the same thing through health psychology.

Breaking this news to my father was one of the hardest things I ever did. The man who had at one time asked only that I finish high school looked at me as if I'd let him down. Even so, the day I received my master's degree, he threw the biggest party yet. Even General Vang Pao came and celebrated with us.

I stayed in school beyond my master's and worked toward my PhD. This time, money didn't get in the way. Something far more important did.

During a Hmong New Year celebration, I met the most
beautiful woman I'd ever seen. We soon married and started a family of our own. I dropped out of graduate school, though I needed only to write my dissertation to finish my doctorate.

My father says to me to this day, “Jerry, all I ask of you is that you finish your doctorate, and I will be happy.”

I laugh every time he says it. But never in front of him.

Sue and I settled into a normal American life, complete with car payments and a mortgage. I went to work at a foster care agency working with at-risk children. Other jobs might have paid more, but this one gave me the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of children.

I might have stayed in that job until I retired if Sue and I hadn't sat on the couch one Saturday night to watch a little television. My story would have had no less of a happy ending. Our life was good. Very good.

And it was about to change forever.

The carnival atmosphere that marked the beginning of the heads up showdown between Tuan Lam and me didn't last long. People get tired, even in Las Vegas. Most of the observers in the grandstands around the feature table had been there since play had begun fourteen hours earlier.

I was exhausted. At this point, adrenaline alone kept my body running. With my huge chip lead, I thought I could end this quickly. Final head-to-head matches at the main event rarely last longer than ten hands. None of the last three had lasted longer than seven.

Then again, none of those final tables had featured Tuan Lam. His style of play defined patience.

Norman Chad, ESPN's color commentator during its broadcasts of the World Series of Poker, said that Tuan Lam had folded his way to the final table. That is not too far from the truth.

I don't mean this as a criticism of Tuan's strategy. Far from
it. Any strategy that takes you to the final head-to-head showdown in a tournament that began with over 6,000 players is a good one.

In fact, Tuan had been an aggressive player through much of the tournament. Going into the final table, he took a different approach. I knew he could be a tight player, but I didn't realize how tight.

Of the seven players who'd been sent home thus far, I'd knocked out six. Tuan, not a single one. He'd taken to heart John Kalmar's idea many hours earlier that he could sit back and let me take everyone's chips, then face me head-to-head. John had busted out a long time ago, but Tuan was still very much in contention for poker's biggest prize.

I had a four-to-one chip lead, yet both of us were well aware that Philip Hilm had held a three-to-one chip lead on me at one time before becoming the first player to bust out.

The first dozen hands between Tuan Lam and me primarily consisted of one or the other of us folding before the flop. Only three hands went all the way to the river, including the very first. Even on those that progressed past the flop, the pots remained small. I could not lure Tuan into risking any of his chips beyond the bare minimum.

My legs and shoulders ached. Not only had we been playing for over fourteen straight hours, but we'd played over sixteen hours on day six and fourteen hours on day five.
⁹
On top of the physical strain, each of those days had been filled with emotional leaps and letdowns. I planned to sleep for about a
week once this was finally over.

When the cards were dealt on the fourteenth hand of our head-to-head showdown, I thought,
This is it. This will end it
. I was the first to act, which is advantageous for an aggressive player, especially with a hand. And I had a hand. “Two point six million.” I was already in the pot for $600,000.

He called.

The flop came: king, queen, six.

We both checked.

The turn card came: five of clubs.

Tuan bet 3 million.

“I'm all in,” I said in response. Those words woke up the crowd.
Come on, call,
I said in my mind over and over.
Just call, and let's end this. Now!

Forty-five long seconds passed.

Finally, without saying a word, Tuan slid his cards toward the dealer, giving up the hand.

We had to keep playing.

The next eight hands consisted of more limping into the pot and folds. I took seventeen of the first twenty-one hands and in the process cut Tuan's chip stack in half. Yet I couldn't deliver the knockout punch. The few times he made a large raise or went all in, I didn't have the cards to call. The last thing I wanted to do was double him up.

Tuan made his first big mistake on hand 23, which was hand 192 of the final table. He was the first to act and pushed all in.

You must keep in mind that Tuan had played tight all
night. However, when a player finds himself on the short stack, he will often push all in from the button as a way of stealing the blinds and antes, thus buying a little more time. I suspected that was exactly what Tuan was trying to do.

I held an ace-ten, so I called.

As soon as I did, I knew I had him. He pulled off his glasses and pursed his lips, which was a sure sign he was bluffing. I flipped over my cards, and his expression seemed to say,
Uh-oh.

The moment he turned his cards, I knew why. He'd gone all in with a puny three-four off suit, one of the top ten worst hands in Texas Hold 'Em.

I pumped my fist in excitement while the crowd behind me went nuts.

Then came the flop. King. Eight.
Four
.

My heart sank. The Canadians in the crowd woke up and cheered like crazy, waving flags and chanting. Honestly, not much had happened the past hour. Everyone in the stands had been waiting for a reason to bust loose.

The hand was far from over, but I knew it didn't look good for me. I had to hit an ace or a ten to take both the pot and the tournament.

The turn card was a six, the river a king.

Not only did I double his chip stack, but I gave him a shot of confidence and made him believe he wasn't dead yet.

Tuan proceeded to take four of the next five hands. The pots were tiny in comparison to the number of chips in play, but that didn't matter. He came to the final table determined to wait me out, no matter how long it took. His strategy had
always been to bide his time, play strong hands, and pray for lucky breaks. He caught one when I doubled him up. A couple more, and he might well win the whole thing.

A full dozen hands passed. Tuan Lam and I had now played twice as many hands in the final head-to-head showdown as there had been in the previous three main events combined. I still had over 100 million in chips. Tuan had 25 million, still only slightly more than he'd had when play had begun at noon.

Hand 205. The clock neared four in the morning. I was on the button, the first to act. I looked at my cards. Pocket eights, the same hand I'd had when I'd first taken the chip lead and the same hand that had knocked out Alex Kravchenko.

I stared at those eights. As I look back at this moment, I think about the day my family climbed on the bus to leave Ban Vinai for America. The camp authorities placed us on bus eight. Over the previous week and a half of poker, pocket eights had kept me alive when I'd been on the brink of busting out, and they'd pushed me up the chip ladder time after time. What a welcome sight they were now.

“I raise.” I slid 2.3 million into the pot.

Tuan flipped some chips in his hand for a few moments. He looked at his cards. Ten seconds passed. Fifteen. Twenty. Finally, he said, “I'm all in.”

I immediately knew what I wanted to do, but still I waited.

From the background, someone yelled, “Do it.”

I had doubled up Tuan once already; I didn't want to do it again. Yet if ever I was going to knock him out, this was my
chance. “I call.”

The moment Tuan saw my cards, he stood up, threw his cards faceup on the table, and yelled, “Yes!”

He was not bluffing this time. He held an ace-queen of diamonds, the sixth strongest hand in Texas Hold 'Em.

Once again, the crowd woke up. The noise was deafening, Canadians cheering on one side, Americans on the other. The carnival was back. Flags waved. People chanted. I know it was only poker, but from where I stood, it felt like the Olympics. The way the crowd carried on, this was nation against nation, the United States versus Canada, with national pride on the line.

Tuan egged on the Canadians, amplifying the noise in the Amazon Room.

Me? I prayed, just as I had on every big hand.

The flop came.
Queen
, nine, five. He paired his queens and immediately became the odds-on favorite to take the hand.

No, not again
. I remembered a story I'd heard about the final table of one of the first World Series of Poker championships. It had lasted something like
three days
. When that queen hit the table, I thought,
Oh, God, I don't know how much more of this I can take
.

Tuan had the exact opposite reaction, as you'd expect. As soon as he saw the queen, Tuan grabbed a Canadian flag and waved it, cheering.

I just prayed that much harder.

The dealer burned a card, then laid down the turn card. A seven. At first the dealer's thumb covered part of the card, and I thought it was an eight.

No such luck.

However, the seven quieted the Canadian side of the room just a bit. That little card, along with the five and nine that hit on the flop, gave me a chance for a gut shot straight. It wasn't a good chance, but I would take it. Out of the forty-five cards potentially still in the deck, the two eights and four sixes would give me the hand and the championship. If any of the other thirty-nine hit the table, Tuan and I would keep playing.

“It's okay,” Tuan, still confident, yelled to his supporters.

Believe me, if I'd been in his position, I would've felt confident as well.

I picked up the photograph of my children that I'd kept with me since the first day and held it close to my face. That photograph had kept me grounded. Every time I looked at it, I knew what I was playing for.
Oh, God, give me the grace to handle whatever happens
.